Ford Europe completes its range of electrified utility vehicles
- Ford Europe is simplifying its range of passenger cars (definitive or planned discontinuation of Fiesta, Focus, Mondeo, Galaxy, S-Max) but continues to develop its range of light utility vehicles (Transit Courier, Transit Connect, Transit Custom, Transit).
- After recently launching the battery electrics E-Transit, E-Transit Custom and E-Transit Courier, the American carmaker is launching the electrified version of its Transit Connect which is curiously not battery electric like the brand's three other LUVs but a plug-in hybrid (perhaps due to the commonolisation of its components with the Volkswagen group which produces the Transit Connect on its Polish site in Poznan).
- The Ford Transit Connect adopts a plug-in hybrid engine (PHEV) based on a 1.5 liter three-cylinder EcoBoost petrol engine delivering 150 hp of Volkswagen origin coupled to an electric motor allowing it to travel 110 km in purely electric use. This new version of the Transit Connect (also available in a passenger transport version called Tourneo) suggests that Volkswagen will soon adopt this engine on its own Caddy light utility vehicle, twin brother of the Transit Connect, produced on the same Polish site in Poznan.
- The launches of electrified Ford Europe LUVs are too recent to have sales figures over a long period. We can, however, specify that 2,000 battery electric LUVs were sold in Europe in 2022 and 6,000 in 2023. On the other hand, 500 PHEVs were sold in Europe in 2022 and as many in 2023. We see that sales volumes still remain very low.