Ford E-Transit

Reading, Pennsylvania-headquartered Penske Truck Leasing has ordered 750 electric Ford E-Transit cargo vans and is taking delivery of the first of those EVs in the next several weeks. This follows Penske’s successful pilot of the EVs in late 2022.

American automaker Ford Motor Company, has outlined plans to expedite its push for EVs in Europe, promising nine all-electric models by 2024, seven of which are new to a lineup that already includes the Mustang Mach-E followed by the E-Transit next quarter. Vehicles from commercial unit Ford Pro, and the recently announced Ford e, combine to further expand Ford EV adoption in Europe.

• Ford’s versatile E-Transit 126-mile electric sprinter/cargo/van platform began production from its Kansas City, Missouri plant. Deliveries begin in a few weeks. I drove it, but drive impressions have to wait.
• Ford is super high on its own supply of Telematics software but equally high on its new Salesforce partnership for software and services.
• I came to California to drive a Ford F-150 Lightning and I got two awesome days in Sonoma meeting Francis Ford Coppola, chatting with some great Ford engineers/execs, drinking some amazing wine, and driving an electric sprinter van (not in that order).

We learned a lot this week as Ford flew us out to Sonoma, CA, and took us to some winery businesses that would soon be using not only electric Ford Pro vehicles but would also be using its telematics software stack to manage everything about them.