jpd80

With Dearborn taking a stronger hand in Ford Europe, maybe C2 now comes more under North American control……vehicles like Maverick, Bronco Sport and Maverick Van perhaps prove the point that more could and should be done…. Ford Nth America and Ford China also doing C2 Mondeo, Corsair, Nautilis, maybe some others that I’ve forgotten for now..

Who knows the precise reason but the 2.3 EB is moving to dual injection and better emissions profile. No idea on North American PHEV but with increased emphasis on PHEVs, maybe it’s back on the table……ROW views it as a cleaner alternative to diesel.

Now that’s interesting, a filing in far off New Zealand bodes well but probably just tipped Ford’s hand…. Mach 4 looks very interesting, 2.3 PHEV would seem to provide everything needed to meet tougher CO2 rules coming into Euro 6 based markets like Australia/New Zealand.

Thank you, that is precisely Ford’s position because they have lost all contact with those other buyers. At least one Ford China product is being sold in RHD South Africa, I think this is a toe in the water for when Escape ends. Interesting that they actually paid to develop a RHD version. Things might also change when low sulphur fuels go on sale in December, we’ve been promised more new Ford’s then. So what is the deal for ford with ROW markets? If Ford Europe can no longer supply vehicles to those markets, then what are their options? Perhaps dedicated plants making egg on specific products in India and Thailand? We know the new Ecosport will be produced in India but perhaps transferring some C2 production to Thailand would be a favourable alternative, maybe cost effective reuse?

Somewhere along the line, Ford gave up on making profitable cars and utilities for places outside of North America, it’s now all about Transit, Ranger, Everest or overpriced Electric vehicles. There’s little to no leveraging of low cost Ford China production to supplement nearby markets.

Yes there’s a lot of speculation out there but if we look it in simplified terms, there’s like three vehicles planned on CE1 and no amount euphoric optimism will magically turn that not eight or ten vehicles- thats not how Ford rolls. The last five years or more have seen so many changes to Ford’s plans that most people think as you do, the best we can hope is for Ford to stabilise sales in compact and mid sized vehicles whatever form that takes. Even more important than that is to keep those fat profits from F Series rolling in because if the profits stop, so does everything else….. Ford is not prepared to give up on Europe but justify different vehicles is getting harder.

About the same time our company went through a similar management shakeup, it was embarrassing to watch older managers who had progressed from their field or trade really struggling with presenting business figures at meetings. Our new broom had a low tolerance for pretenders and meetings became so uncomfortable that several took early retirement and were replaced by younger people with actual business management training. Painful period but a big breath of fresh air and higher profits followed

It was so bad that he had his brother in law, Steve Hamp act as a filter between him and the senior VPs. and he put his fishing Buddy, Mark Schulz in charge of Europe, PAG and Asia Pacific, so no wonder things we’re getting off the rails back then. A transfer to FOE AND PAG was seen as a jolly for Ford executives.

Ford Europe’s management fell into the trap of staying just ahead of ever tightening emissions regs and you are so right, this has been coming for a long time. A lot of it was home room tribalism where any changes requested by other areas was met with scorn and flat out refusal.

And this is why Farley basically had Dearborn take direct control of European operation, the previous heads have run up so much debt that the BU only survives on Transit sales. While the commercial business is still strong, the retail / passenger vehicle side is in trouble. Leveraging vehicles that are being developed in USA and Chinese operations would seem to be the most cost effectuive solution here as well as CE1 vehicles and modules for Europe. Strange how Ford seems to be at its best when fighting for survival…..

Ranger PHEV is AWD only and has a kerb weight ranging from 2527kg for XLT to 2692kg for StormTrak which is well above the estimate for the Mach 4

And to bring this back to Mustang Mach 4 (four door) I would expect it to be significantly lighter than the PHEV Ranger. That power train in a more usable four door arrangement might be the ticket for a sizeable group of buyers. There is good reason to be excited about Mach 4 prospects……..

Wepp, it was kinda relevant as talking more about the 2.3 PHEV that will be coming in Mustang coupe and four door…….

Yes sorry, sloppy copying on my part but I’m willing to wait and see how the actual drive tests go with regards to performance against BYD Shark 6. I have a feeling that even with a depleted battery, the PHEV Ranger may still perform well over the quarter mile due to it acting like a hybrid that only needs a small battery to keep working properly. I dunno, our motoring journalists look to be declaring the PHEV Ranger a failure completely on the derated EB power and torque figures, maybe they eat their words.. Definitely a lot to unpack but unfortunately the Aussie press and local Ford Forums members are openly critical of the power levels. I’m opens to being wrong. While the PHEV Ranger has a much smaller battery than the Chinese PHEV/EREVs, I am aware that balanced features of the entire package is probably worth more to actual buyers. Ranger still has much better off-roading ability compared to the Chinese competitors and I’m thinking that even when the battery is almost depleted, it will still perform as expected due regen braking where the Chinese pickups tend to close down electric power when battery level falls below 25%. and that could be a massive difference that only shows up when those owners are I; the middle of nowhere with no way to recharge.

This. Dearborn is at a bit of a loss as to what to do with Ford Europe and apart from the continuing BEVs and Transit vans, I think they’re waiting for CE1 variants in a few years to replace the VW based Explorer and Capri. The only up side here is that VW looks to be in even bigger hole needing must do affordable BEVs to survive

Love to see this project proceed but I think Ford now has a lot more pressing issues on its plate……

Just on the PHEV 2.3 EB in the Ranger, it looks like Ford has absolutely knobbled the EB’s power and torque, probably to comply with Europe’s tight CO2 emission limits. Total System Power 207 Kw @ 4,600. 697nm @2,700 277 hp @ 4,600. 516 lbft @ 2,700 Electric Motor 75 Kw / 101 hp. 286 nm / 211 lb ft 2.3 EB engine 138 Kw / 185 hp @ 4,600. 411 nm / 304 lb ft @ 2,700

The other issue is that Ford Europe also supplies ROW markets, the supply of those vehicles has been drying up. As an alternative, it would be great if Ford could expand its Chinese production to cover south east Asia and Australia. Heck, even Bronco Sport and Maverick exports from Mexico would help…..

Haven’t heard if road reliability testing was done as that would be part of the final sign off and handover. Could be that Ford wanted to wait until maybe four door could use the PHEV as well, just speculation here but maybe the PHEV makes more sense in the four door? Good point.

They either recapitalise the existing debt or watch their operation go bankrupt. And that’s before Ford does anything about the vehicles it’s trying to sell.

Yes, a reliable source says that the project was completed but the PHEV model was delayed and quietly dropped from discussion.

Interesting story re S650 development. S650 was evolved from S550 using CD6 elements to permit hybrid, the floorpan was changed to accomodate batteries. The PHEV 2.3 EB was supposed to debut in S650 Mustang shortly after launch but was delayed (indefinitely?) in preference to PHEV 2.3 Ranger for European market. Yes, both of those options make perfect sense

Exactly so, Ford is basically following the formula Ford Australia used to prolong its local production of Falcon when it developed the Territory Utility in 2005. Falcon and Territory continued until 2016 when FOA finally pulled the plug.

Exciting new if this all works out for VW, Europe is coming to the crunch point where affordable BEVs are now must do products as regulations close in on manufacturers. It’s good to see manufacturers really stretch themselves and make vehicles like this happen. Hopefully this will force through a new era of profitable low cost BEVs, not just regulation compliance vehicles.

Mustang is steel body but some of the bolt on panels are aluminium. All I’m saying is that increasing wheelbase generally means an increase in weight. F trucks went to aluminium bodies for weight reduction because it was justified and importantly, amortised across millions of builds over the past ten years. Anything less than that scale of efficiency would be hard to justify aluminium, it’s an engineer’s dream to get weight down but the costs are always up there and probably 25% more now….. Carbon fibre was also looked at by Mulally’s team but it was even more expensive than Aluminium and magnesium light weighting.