Last weekend, I published an article arguing that the US auto industry needs a push to transition its biggest segment, trucks, to being powered by batteries and Tesla unveiling its all-electric pickup truck could be that needed push.
Interestingly, a few days later, Ford made a rare comment on a possible all-electric pickup truck.
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In January we reported on Ford’s big strategic expansion into electrified vehicles, announcing seven electrified cars with six more to come. Today Ford issued a press release about two EVs they will bring to the Chinese market: a plug-in version of the Mondeo (Fusion) sedan and an all-new fully-electric small SUV. The fully electric SUV has so far only been announced on paper, not given a model name or shown as a concept car. Ford’s only specifications are that it will have a range of more than 450km (280 miles) and will come to China “within five years.”
Ford called the two models “new” in their press release today, but they’re really “new-to-China” rather than new overall. The small SUV was already announced in the January strategic announcement linked above, and the Mondeo is just the “world” version of the car Ford calls the Fusion in the US. So it looks like these two “new” cars don’t actually represent two of the six unannounced cars Ford alluded to in their January announcement.
There are a lot of companies now working on autonomous driving technologies and as many approaches to achieve the ultimate goal of a safe fully self-driving system. With such a transformative technology, there will be an extraordinarily important first-mover advantage.
Navigant Research attempted to create a leaderboard based on each company’s vision and execution in order to get an idea of which ones might have a lead. It published the report this week with interesting results.
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Ford announced that it qualified 3 companies making electric powertrains for its chassis through its Electric Qualified Vehicle Modifier (eQVM) program. Its entire lineup of commercial trucks will offer some form of electric powertrains, either hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and even all-electric.
One company was even qualified to make a F-150 pickup truck with a plug-in hybrid powertrain.
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President Donald Trump has been using the threat of a border tax in order to try to convince companies to increase domestic production. It has often been a major point of discussion when the President has been dealing with auto industry executives – some are on his advisory council.
A new study looked into the possible impact of the proposed border tax on the cost of the vehicles sold by automakers in the US. They found that Tesla’s prices would be the least affected by Trump’s border tax among all automakers – foreign and domestic.
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In this week’s top stories: Tesla CEO Elon Musk shares some thoughts on the upcoming Trump administration, Tesla Model 3 could soon be the most American made car, Chargepoint shows us its new 400kW charging station at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, and Ford, Faraday Future and others unveil their latest EVs and concepts at the show.
Today Ford announced a big strategic expansion into electric and electrified vehicles, announcing 7 coming “electrified” vehicle models with 6 more to be announced in the near future. Among the announced vehicles are a hybrid Mustang and F-150, a hybrid autonomous rideshare vehicle, a plug-in hybrid Transit, and a fully electric SUV.
These are welcome steps from Ford and signal a pretty significant strategic shift towards “electrified vehicles,” which they see overtaking gas vehicles within 15 years, but I, as usual, think they fall short in terms of aggressiveness. Check beneath the jump for some analysis of today’s announcements.
Ford is making a big announcement in electrification today. CEO Mark Field confirmed several new models will receive electric drivetrain options, including its flagship F-150 pickup truck that will double as an on-site generator. In 2015, Ford announced a $4.5 billion investment in electric vehicles in order to introduce 13 new models.
Today, it confirmed 7 of those 13 new models and the list will surprise a few: a new all-electric SUV with “at least” 300 miles of range, a hybrid F-150 and a hybrid Mustang, a Transit Custom plug-in hybrid and 2 new electric police vehicles.
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After GM took the opportunity to expand its self-driving test fleet following its home state of Michigan opening its roads to the technology, now Ford announces an expansion of its own test fleet with some cars going to Michigan and to its current fleet in California.
The automaker also released the first images of its next generation autonomous test vehicle using the Ford Fusion Hybrid. It features a new and significantly better-integrated sensor suite.
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BMW, Daimler’s Mercedes, Ford, and Volkswagen’s Audi and Porsche announced today that they are creating a joint-venture with the goal of a “quick build-up of a sizable number of stations in order to enable long-range travel for battery electric vehicle drivers.”
The new venture is similar to the Ultra E project announced earlier this year to deploy 25 new charging station for electric vehicles along the trans-European transport network (TEN-T), but it’s apparently a separate and much more ambitious project to deploy 400 stations across Europe.
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We haven’t talked about Ford’s electric vehicle programs for a while now. That’s because there isn’t much to talk about. The company has fallen behind the competition when it comes to 200+ miles electric vehicles to compete with the likes of the Tesla Model 3 or the Chevy Bolt EV coming next year since its own entry in the segment is only planned for 2019.
Late last year, Ford announced a $4.5 billion investment in EV technology and 13 new electric models coming to its lineup by 2020, but we haven’t really seen the fruit of the investment just yet.
Though Ford hasn’t fallen behind for the current generation of mid-range electric vehicles with its new 2017 Ford Focus Electric. The vehicle mostly went under the radar, but the company has confirmed a 33.5 kWh battery pack for an EPA-rated range of 115 miles on a single charge.
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Today, Ford CEO Mark Fields announced that the automaker plans to start producing fully autonomous (level 4) cars in high-volume by 2021. Fields described Ford’s autonomous driving effort as just as significant as when Henry Ford created his first assembly line.
The automaker’s 2021 target is in line with most of the auto industry, but behind some technology companies like Google or Tesla – if you consider Tesla more of a tech company than an automaker.
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While the Ford Focus Electric may have been an interesting car during the latest generation of all-electric vehicles, along with the LEAF and BMW i3, the automaker has since been complacent about the upcoming new long-range wave of EVs. The company recently announced a $4.5 billion in investment in electric vehicles to close the gap, but it has yet to announce a competitor to the Tesla Model 3, Chevy Bolt or the next-gen LEAF.
During a conference call with analysts and reporters this week, Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields confirmed for the first time that Ford is “developing” something for the segment.
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I managed to come into a lease of a Ford Focus Electric starting in August 2013, and this is my review of my time with it. For a little bit more background on me, and my newest primary car, please check out my review of my Cadillac ELR here.
The Ford Focus Electric (FFE) is an excellent first all-electric car to market. Coming out starting in 2012, there was not much competition, and in my opinion it was the best all-electric on the market at the time.
Google joins Uber, Ford, Volvo and Lyft in forming a Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets to promote self driving car regulations on a federal level versus state by state level. Google has been battling the California DMV who have proposed to ban Google’s Koala car that does not have a steering wheel or pedals and would not require a licensed driver.
Tesla Model X Founder series are fairly rare vehicles. Tesla CEO Elon Musk owns one (picture above), NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang also has one, and few other investors and early Tesla supporters, like Steve Jurvetson, were able to buy the limited-edition vehicle.
Founder series are not only limited-editions, but they also were delivered early in the production process. The Model X remains difficult to get considering every car delivered up to until very recently had been reserved months or years prior to delivery. The process makes it difficult for competitors, like Audi, to get their hands on the Model X to benchmark it or reverse-engineer it, which can then increase the short-term resale value and add a significant markup.
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Late last year Ford announced a $4.5 billion investment in EV technology and 13 new electric models coming to its lineup by 2020. Today Ford’s EV chief Kevin Layden sat down with Automotive News and discussed the company’s electric vehicle plans.
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Autonomous and semi-autonomous driving systems are already getting pretty good under favorable driving conditions, but one of most people’s main concern is about how a self-driving car would handle heavy rain or snow.
Although not recommended, Tesla’s Autopilot can already handle snow to a certain degree, but several systems in development are focusing on especially nailing winter self-driving. Ford recently released a video featuring what it calls “Snowtonomy.”
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According to a report today out of The Wall Street Journal, Ford, as part of its plan to reinvent itself, is planning to create a separate business unit dedicated to its ambitions in autonomous cars for “ride-sharing and fleets.” Of course the company is seeking partnerships in this space, and it just so happens that, just as was reported by Yahoo Autos a few weeks ago, Alphabet Inc.’s Google is a big part of this move…
We are kicking off the new year at Electrek with extensive coverage of everything electric vehicle related at CES in Las Vegas this week.
There might be a few surprises, but we made a quick list of the main events, especially the new electric cars debuting at the show, so you can have a good idea of what’s coming in the EV industry in the next few days:
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Do you remember when Batman turned a part of the Batmobile into a motorcycle with the touch of a button in The Dark Knight? Well this is like a lame version of that. We learn that Ford patented a concept for an electric car powered by in-wheel electric motors that can turn into a unicycle.
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Google’s self-driving car initiative has been gaining momentum over the past year, but now it looks like the company has at least one more big piece of news up its sleeve. According to a report from Yahoo Autos, Google and Ford are planning to announce a joint venture to build self-driving cars.
We reported earlier today about Ford preparing to unveil a plug-in vehicle at the Detroit Auto Show next month, but apparently that leak was only a teaser as Ford just announced that it is getting really serious about electric cars with $4.5 billion in investment and 13 new electric models coming to its lineup by 2020.
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Ford appears to be set to unveil a plug-in vehicle at the Detroit Auto show next month as evidenced by recent pictures (see above) posted to Twitter by WSJ’s Detroit Bureau Chief John Stoll.
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