Blue Oval battery drive ties with Volkswagen and starts with a small SUV.

 EVERY Ford passenger and commercial model presently sold in New Zealand might potentially be affected by a bombshell electric drive announcement.

Ford’s decision to transfer its entire passenger vehicle line-up in Europe to electric power within the next few years and also to electrify its commercial vehicle range, including the next-generation of the Ranger utility – a top-seller here in its present form – was delivered overnight. 

The repercussion here is still being considered by Ford New Zealand, with spokesman Tom Clancy saying “we have no news for New Zealand on that one. It’s too early to see how that relates to us.”

However, the inevitability of some degree of impact seems clear enough.

While Ford is suggesting some of its electrics are just for Europe, the whole plan also appears to draws in future versions of core passenger lines – Fiesta, Focus, Puma and Mondeo (recently discontinued here, but set to re-emerge in 2022 as a SUV that Ford NZ says it will look at) – that NZ takes from that region, with no Plan B.  

We also commit to its Transit van, which is already available in plug-in electric form locally and will go to full electric year.

This schedule also draws in the new-generation Ranger coming next year. That line is a co-development with Volkswagen, whose new Amarok will be a doppelganger, with the programme handled by the same team operating from Melbourne that were behind the current T6.

Talk from Ford Europe is for the one-tonne ute to deliver it with a plug-in hybrid or all-electric option by 2024; presumably these being optional to the diesel engines it will assuredly continue with. Ford has cited intent to achieve two-thirds of commercial sales to be electrified in Europe by 2030. 

The Blue Oval also announced overnight that its first full electric car out of Europe will base off the German giant’s bespoke MEB platform that’s also underpinning all VW Group’s battery-compelled passenger models.

Ford’s model will effectively be a cousin to the to VW ID.4, Skoda Enyaq, SEAT El-Born and two Audi Q4s that are all already NZ-confirmed.

That car will be a small sports utility similar to the Puma. The website for a British weekly, Auto Express, claims the model will derive its styling influence from Ford’s only current electric car, the Mustang Mach-E. It has published images of how it sees it looking.

Ford has also implied the Escape medium SUV will be subject to more electrification beyond the plug-in hybrid treatment it will deliver to NZ later this year.

With all that going, the potential for its performance icon, the Mustang, being ignored seems unlikely. That will be news the NZ fanbase that overwhelmingly choses the current car in its V8 petrol format might find challenging.

However, Ford’s drive toward electric seems cemented. Europe needs to be a primary development site, because this is where brands need electrics if they have any hope of meeting tough European Union CO2 targets. And, of course, beyond that numerous European regions and the United Kingdom are intent on banning on internal combustion engine cars, many by 2030.

Ford says the Fiesta-like EV will be out within two years and will built at a redeveloped Cologne manufacturing plant.

The factory will become the Ford Cologne Electrification Centre - a dedicated electric car manufacturing site. Ultimately it will produce two Ford EVs tailored for European tastes.

AutoExpress says the dimensions of the MEB platform means Ford’s car will likely sit between the Fiesta and Focus in size, and “very close” to the Puma SUV.

“Although the platform is modular and can be extended or shortened with different battery options, it’s expected that Ford’s new EV will be similar in size, allowing clear space between it and the … Mustang Mach-E. However, interior space of the ‘Mini Mustang’ is likely to be in excess of that in the Focus and closer to that in the Mondeo,” the magazine surmises.

Ford will also have VW’s battery technology – so, a choice of 58kWh batteries with power outputs of 150kW or 106kW or a 77kWh battery also with 150kW, but with a longer range.

To be competitive with other MEB models and their rivals, the baby Ford EV would have to offer between 400 and 550 kilometres’ range, AutoExpress says. Fast charging will also be offered with an 80 percent charge expected in a little over half an hour.

Stuart Rowley, the president of Ford Europe, says the announcement in respect to the future of the Cologne factory, which has been outputting cars for almost a century, “is one of the most significant Ford has made in over a generation.”