Ford's 'Next Model T Moment' Starts With A $30,000 Mid-Size Electric Truck

  • Thread starter Thread starter Eunos_Cosmo
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Seems reactive to the Slate vehicle.

If anything the Bronco could have been that Model T.
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05XR8
Seems reactive to the Slate vehicle.
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This would have been in the works before Bezos' pet project popped out of the woodwork, and a midsize truck is going to be a lot larger than that thing since most "midsize" trucks these days are about as large as a full-size truck from 20 years ago. It seems more like an attempt at recouping all the development money they poured into Rivian, and probably trying to take a bite out of the current anti-Tesla sentiment too. But until they actually show some designs and hard figures, it could just end up being a fancy way of them saying "we're gonna whack some battery packs into the bottom of a Maverick and rebrand it as the Ranger Lightning" or something else equally disappointing too.
 
Yeah I saw the article and I thought would be some pictures of the model but basically right now it's a slide deck with some bullet points. 🥱
 
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This feels like a half-assed attempt to get some attention. And yet, we all know people that will eat up anything the old companies put out there, so I expect to hear them gushing about this, maybe how nice that "new" logo is. I however have no faith.
 
Well this article describes the "system" a little more in-depth. If I'm understanding it right, it seems to be borrowing some ideas from Tesla in terms of large-scale aluminum casting. It's a big bet and a big investment into product type with a currently dubious looking outlook.
 
EngieDiesel
This would have been in the works before Bezos' pet project popped out of the woodwork, and a midsize truck is going to be a lot larger than that thing since most "midsize" trucks these days are about as large as a full-size truck from 20 years ago. It seems more like an attempt at recouping all the development money they poured into Rivian, and probably trying to take a bite out of the current anti-Tesla sentiment too. But until they actually show some designs and hard figures, it could just end up being a fancy way of them saying "we're gonna whack some battery packs into the bottom of a Maverick and rebrand it as the Ranger Lightning" or something else equally disappointing too.
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I thought about the Maverick as well. Ford’s Beetle/Civic/Mini/Corolla/dare I say Escort is the F-150. I guess they’re finding (another)way to make a smaller version for everyday parking in underground car park parking dimensions and call it done.

Looking at the old F-series trucks. Crazy the size comparison in regards to packaging.
 
Tornado
Wow I love $30,000 cars that actually cost $45,000 when you go to see one at a dealer lot.
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Unless you find a barebones one that's fleet order overstock, it's been sitting around for about a year and you can annoy the dealer into giving it to you at cost so they can just get it off their lot. Simple, right?
 
astrarobotica
Will this even sell well? I thought The American Dream was buying a big expensive truck you don't need/can barely afford as a status symbol. What's the point if it's small(er) and affordable?
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I don't see why it wouldn't. The Maverick sells decently enough, and not everyone can afford or wants a large truck. Since this will more or less be an EV Ranger, that slots it in at half the price of the F-150 Lightning assuming it really is $30k. $30k is the new affordable benchmark for vehicles.
 
www.freep.com

Ford's 'Model T moment' leaves analysts wanting more, calling it a risk

Industry analysts say if Ford can pull off the new manufacturing process and platform to develop less costly EVs, great. But some are skeptical.
www.freep.com

There's far more detail about the production platform than the truck itself, other than that it'll be a midsize four-door set for a 2027 launch. Which means that it's basically going to be an EV Ranger even if it's rebuilt from the ground up, and the whole purpose seems more towards getting the platform developed to try and steal market from Chinese EV sales in Europe (and possibly post-Trump North America, assuming he doesn't appoint himself the Eternal King or something before then).
 
EngieDiesel
www.freep.com

Ford's 'Model T moment' leaves analysts wanting more, calling it a risk

Industry analysts say if Ford can pull off the new manufacturing process and platform to develop less costly EVs, great. But some are skeptical.
www.freep.com

There's far more detail about the production platform than the truck itself, other than that it'll be a midsize four-door set for a 2027 launch. Which means that it's basically going to be an EV Ranger even if it's rebuilt from the ground up, and the whole purpose seems more towards getting the platform developed to try and steal market from Chinese EV sales in Europe (and possibly post-Trump North America, assuming he doesn't appoint himself the Eternal King or something before then).
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I don't think it's going to be an EV Ranger. When I look at midsize trucks these days I see a lot of waste in their shape. Rivian tried to mitigate this by having adjustable suspension to lower the truck way down on the highway but they insisted on keeping off-road capability. Doable, but expensive.

I think an EV truck for all will be more like a Maverick but longer and wider. Edit: The article from @Eunos_Cosmo literallty says it'll be like a Maverick but bigger inside. Length helps aero efficiency while height/ground clearance hurts aero efficiency. You gain the interior space by making it wider.

Rivian chose to default their truck to a middle height and lower it for efficiency and raise it for off-road but I think this was a bad idea - a Rivian's low mode is still higher than most sedans and is perfectly driveable on any road, however its alignment angles chew through tires since the truck's geometry isn't designed to be aligned in that mode. The truck spends 98% of its time on-road, so what they should've done it kept it low and aligned the tires for that, then sacrificed alignment in off-road mode which is both rare and on loose surfaces at low speeds where alignment is less important. I think this is what Ford will do, have the vehicle pretty low, and have an optional lifting suspension for some peace of mind while camping or whatever.

Maverick 2.0, just a big longer and wider.
 
Regardless of whether it's a Ranger II or Maverick 2.0, calling it their "next Model T moment" is still looking rather presumptuous. Sure, a unified chassis for EV production is a useful thing, but they're still two years out from producing it and the issue of battery range and long-term performance still hasn't really been solved. And there's the question of whether EV's in general will regain their reputation in North America, because right now they're very squarely in the "not cool" camp and it's going to take some serious commitment to reverse that.
 
EngieDiesel
Regardless of whether it's a Ranger II or Maverick 2.0, calling it their "next Model T moment" is still looking rather presumptuous. Sure, a unified chassis for EV production is a useful thing, but they're still two years out from producing it and the issue of battery range and long-term performance still hasn't really been solved. And there's the question of whether EV's in general will regain their reputation in North America, because right now they're very squarely in the "not cool" camp and it's going to take some serious commitment to reverse that.
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It also can't be a 'Model T moment' if its a purely truck platform. It needs sizeable worldwide sales for that and its not getting that purely as a truck. The Ranger is the best selling truck in european markets and has been for some time - with almost 50% of the market, but doesn't even get close to being in the top 50 best selling cars.
 
TheCracker
It also can't be a 'Model T moment' if its a purely truck platform. It needs sizeable worldwide sales for that and its not getting that purely as a truck. The Ranger is the best selling truck in european markets and has been for some time - with almost 50% of the market, but doesn't even get close to being in the top 50 best selling cars.
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I was a bit closed-minded as well with this but you're right, it should take different form factors and serve different economic purposes if they really want to slap the Model T on its name. Which brings me back to the Maverick and Bronco Sport, both of which have sold over 100,000 per year just in America for the past few years. Great example of (somewhat) affordable platform sharing. If they can do that with a similar EV but expand it to things like utility vans then we've got a massive sales hit. Relative to EVs of course...I still don't think we're ready but we'll see. To be fair, those urban runabouts are precisely the type of cars that shoudl be electrified but besides the Rivian delivery van and the stillborn Trump-axed USPS van we've got a serious lack of round-robin utility vehicles in America.
 
Keef
I was a bit closed-minded as well with this but you're right, it should take different form factors and serve different economic purposes if they really want to slap the Model T on its name. Which brings me back to the Maverick and Bronco Sport, both of which have sold over 100,000 per year just in America for the past few years. Great example of (somewhat) affordable platform sharing. If they can do that with a similar EV but expand it to things like utility vans then we've got a massive sales hit. Relative to EVs of course...I still don't think we're ready but we'll see. To be fair, those urban runabouts are precisely the type of cars that shoudl be electrified but besides the Rivian delivery van and the stillborn Trump-axed USPS van we've got a serious lack of round-robin utility vehicles in America.
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BrightDrop vans seem to be replacing a lot of the Fedex/UPS delivery trucks in NorCal*...dunno about elsewhere. An electric Transit Connect / Ram Promaster City would seem like a logical progression in the urban delivery runaround segment. Ford isn't going out of their way to claim this as part of the "model T moment" though, so it's probably not in the cards for the immediate future. I don't understand this whole plan to be honest, I don't think many people are clamoring for a small electric pickup. There doesn't seem to be a high-tech angle like Tesla or others and there doesn't seem to be a low-tech angle like Slate. It's just sorta meh.

*Thankful for this, because every ICE-powered UPS trucks seems to be straight piped and obnoxiously loud.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
I don't understand this whole plan to be honest, I don't think many people are clamoring for a small electric pickup. There doesn't seem to be a high-tech angle like Tesla or others and there doesn't seem to be a low-tech angle like Slate. It's just sorta meh.
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The focus is less on the truck and more on the platform it's being built on. They're clearly worried that Chinese EV makers are going to take up much of the market share in Europe in the coming years and if this platform is designed to accommodate a range of body styles, then it would allow them to compete in both volume and price point by getting new models out as quickly as possible. It doesn't seem to be anything different from the "skateboard chassis" that other EV producers use, it's just Ford's own proprietary spin on it.

As far as why it's a truck over here, a midsize EV pickup is going to get attention because there aren't really any midsize EV pickups right now, and it would be a good demonstrator of how versatile the platform is. If Ford brought out a sedan then either people would scoff at them because they walked away from the passenger car market, or probably Toyota would bring out an EV Corolla as a counter and they'd get dunked on.
 
EngieDiesel
The focus is less on the truck and more on the platform it's being built on. They're clearly worried that Chinese EV makers are going to take up much of the market share in Europe in the coming years and if this platform is designed to accommodate a range of body styles, then it would allow them to compete in both volume and price point by getting new models out as quickly as possible. It doesn't seem to be anything different from the "skateboard chassis" that other EV producers use, it's just Ford's own proprietary spin on it.
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If that's the case, i wonder why they don't just use the GE1 platform that currently underpins just the Mach-E? That in itself is roughly based on the platform that's used by almost every other non-truck Ford or Lincoln, so you would think it must be pretty flexible.

Of the 4 fully electric Fords sold in Europe, 3 of them, the Mach-E, Explorer EV and Capri are all roughly the same size and price, so the line up could really do with less overlap plus the Explorer and Capri are both sat on a VW/Skoda/Audi platform. It all kind of points to the GE1 platform being a bit of a dead end. I guess if its based around a older ICE platform its probably not as future proof as they think they need. This article from two and a half years ago talks about Ford already working on a new EV platform for the Euro market, but it would make sense if it underpins some US only models too.
 
TheCracker
If that's the case, i wonder why they don't just use the GE1 platform that currently underpins just the Mach-E? That in itself is roughly based on the platform that's used by almost every other non-truck Ford or Lincoln, so you would think it must be pretty flexible.
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Cost concerns, no doubt. Much of the press surrounding this makes note of how Ford has managed to drastically reduce the amount of wiring and materials needed to produce the new platform since it's not a bespoke thing made for one specific vehicle, which is likely how they intend to keep everything built on it around the $30k price point.
 
Well, either way, Ford need to do something.
www.motortrend.com

A Small Toyota Truck For $30K? Believe It.

The Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz are about to get some competition from Toyota.
www.motortrend.com www.motortrend.com
Cooper Ericksen, Toyota Motor North America’s head of planning and strategy, told MotorTrend the automaker is building the truck. “Decisions have been made,” he said. “The question is when we can slot it in. It’s not a matter of ‘if’ at this point.”
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They already have done something! Ford is leading the pack in this segment by a massive margin. The Maverick is the regular-engined small truck that America wanted and was ready for.

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I don't think a small EV pickup will be nearly as widely adopted as the Maverick, especially in America, which is why my idea of the "Model T moment" included all the commercial applications where such a platform would excel. I think the consumer market will actually be the smallest market for a tiny EV truck/SUV/van platform, while fleets will gobble it up. Luckily for Ford, they seem to be outpacing everybody in this particular market.
 
Keef
I think the consumer market will actually be the smallest market for a tiny EV truck/SUV/van platform, while fleets will gobble it up.
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If that's the case then Ford may as well pack it in right now, because you don't loudly crow about revolutionizing a manufacturing process for an entire market segment just to peddle delivery vans and utility company worker runabouts at fleet discounts (even if that is pretty much the ideal use case for EVs right now). If they can't use this platform to make at least a couple appealing consumer vehicles, especially in Europe where Tesla hasn't completely poisoned the market, then the whole thing will end up being a bust.
 

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