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2023 Transit Connect


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2 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

 

 

Sigh...the E-150 was in the no mans land I was speaking about before:

2004 E150 212″ L 

2021 T-150  217" (smallest one)
2020 TC 174-190″ L

 

The TC filled in for the E150 in florist delivery and other places where an E-150 was overkill.  The Transit replacing the E-150/250 grew expediently larger...with the some versions of the T-250 growing an additional 30 inches over the older E-250.  

 

You are right. Transit Connect replaced E150 at the very light duty end of the market. T150 and 250 are much more van than E150 was.

 

However, I think what we are seeing now is that Ford is pushing TC slightly higher in size because there is some headroom below the cut off for Class 1. No reason not to get GVWR up to the 6,000 lbs limit. The Europeans wouldn't go for that because that would bump it up too close to Transit Custom. 

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4 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

 

Who knows...I don't think anyone knows what that is supposed to be anymore.

It seems like its as murky as the BEV program at Avon Lake

Ford changes plans like underpants, situations and opportunities are presenting faster than Ford can plan.

 

I wonder if Ford's own design mid sized utility plans are already redundant thanks to the VW alliance.

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11 minutes ago, bzcat said:

 

You are right. Transit Connect replaced E150 at the very light duty end of the market. T150 and 250 are much more van than E150 was.

 

However, I think what we are seeing now is that Ford is pushing TC slightly higher in size because there is some headroom below the cut off for Class 1. No reason not to get GVWR up to the 6,000 lbs limit. The Europeans wouldn't go for that because that would bump it up too close to Transit Custom. 

Exactly, Transit Custom / Metrix are not a good fit for North America  where as

 Transit Connect can cover the lower end of the delivery van market much better. 

high, mid and low roof options coupled with LWB & SWB all have good potential.

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14 minutes ago, slemke said:

Sure, but e-series and Mustang would probably take some work, while C2 as the original poster mentioned has plug and play modules available.


E series is an outlier but remember the 10R60 tranny from Explorer with the integrated electric motor drops right into Mustang or any other RWD vehicle.

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1 minute ago, akirby said:


E series is an outlier but remember the 10R60 tranny from Explorer with the integrated electric motor drops right into Mustang or any other RWD vehicle.

Correct, but it still needs a battery pack somewhere.  Maybe not a big deal to eliminate the rear seat and or trunk.  I bet the next Mustang has some changes to accommodate a battery pack without much if any sacrifice similar to the Explorer.

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7 minutes ago, slemke said:

Correct, but it still needs a battery pack somewhere.  Maybe not a big deal to eliminate the rear seat and or trunk.  I bet the next Mustang has some changes to accommodate a battery pack without much if any sacrifice similar to the Explorer.


Im sure they can accommodate the Explorer setup.  Hybrid battery packs aren’t huge.

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On 3/12/2021 at 6:25 PM, bzcat said:

I wonder if the passenger version of V758 was the stillborn CX758.

 

Think about it... 3 row seats on LWB body with optional AWD. Use P758 Maverick's regular doors instead of V758's sliding doors. Add cladding... and you have a bargain Explorer. But that's probably why CX758 got the axe... Ford doesn't need internal competition for Explorer. 

 

 

 

Sounds interesting. Other markets could benefit from this model, possibly with good margins. Maybe CX758 gets resurrected, V758 seems to have - with the BX trio gone, that makes a lot of sense...

Edited by passis
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  • 3 months later...

Yeah... if production is supposed to start in 2023 it means design has to be locked right about now so we are passed the mule stage. The prototype with final body panels should appear soon for testing. Some of the mules we saw before for Maverick was probably actually V758. It's hard to tell under camo and fake body panels.

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I'm 105% sure 2023 Transit Connect will be a hybrid ?

 

Less sure about price but logically, it would be cheaper than importing it from Spain and paying 25% chicken tax. Right now, Ford basically charges extra for the wagon (not subject to chicken tax) to make up for the van (which is subject to chicken tax). So you have an absurd situation where the van costs Ford a lot more than the wagon but the van carried a MSRP that is about $1,500 cheaper. Building in Mexico means the van could potentially be cheaper than Maverick (only 2 seat interior vs. Maverick). If that is the case, the fleet buyers will eat it up.

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1 hour ago, bzcat said:

I'm 105% sure 2023 Transit Connect will be a hybrid ?

 

Less sure about price but logically, it would be cheaper than importing it from Spain and paying 25% chicken tax. Right now, Ford basically charges extra for the wagon (not subject to chicken tax) to make up for the van (which is subject to chicken tax). So you have an absurd situation where the van costs Ford a lot more than the wagon but the van carried a MSRP that is about $1,500 cheaper. Building in Mexico means the van could potentially be cheaper than Maverick (only 2 seat interior vs. Maverick). If that is the case, the fleet buyers will eat it up.

This is a clever use of C2 van modules for American markets and I applaud regional developments like this because they address specific needs of American customers, things like higher but shorter vans that Euros dismiss. Like Maverick, the NG TC might actually surprise many.

Edited by jpd80
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I'm not so optimistic- Ford may just as likely screw up the TC. Ford has already committed Hermosillo to building 2 different boxy "trucklets"- Bronco Sport and Maverick- And how much capacity is there to build a third van shaped car there? Then there's the economics- With ROW getting a badge engineered VW Caddy van, the North American market is maybe 40k vehicles a year- Not enough to justify tooling up a whole new van. That leaves Ford the options of bringing over the current TC's tooling and building it at Hermasillo with a few updates, or stretching the Maverick's body and maybe raising the roof into a "sedan delivery" which while "cheep 'n' cheerful" would lose a lot of the TC's van utility.  

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Mexican products can reach all of the Americas at competitive prices. Like the Bronco Sport and the Maverick, a new C2 Transit has good potential in many markets, and Ford may stop relying on vans assembled by thrid parties, as is the case of the Uruguayan Transit. I wonder, however, how much production at Hermosillo can be increased at a good cost...

Edited by passis
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45 minutes ago, passis said:

Mexican products can reach all of the Americas at competitive prices. Like the Bronco Sport and the Maverick, a new C2 Transit has good potential in many markets, and Ford may stop relying on vans assembled by thrid parties, as is the case of the Uruguayan Transit. I wonder, however, how much production at Hermosillo can be increased at a good cost...


If it fits or the plant gets a major renovation anyway, they can always use FRAP for overflow production again like they did from 2014-16. 

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5 hours ago, GearheadGrrrl said:

I'm not so optimistic- Ford may just as likely screw up the TC. Ford has already committed Hermosillo to building 2 different boxy "trucklets"- Bronco Sport and Maverick- And how much capacity is there to build a third van shaped car there? Then there's the economics- With ROW getting a badge engineered VW Caddy van, the North American market is maybe 40k vehicles a year- Not enough to justify tooling up a whole new van. That leaves Ford the options of bringing over the current TC's tooling and building it at Hermasillo with a few updates, or stretching the Maverick's body and maybe raising the roof into a "sedan delivery" which while "cheep 'n' cheerful" would lose a lot of the TC's van utility.  

 

I think you're also assuming it'd be a 100% completely unique vehicle, so it's not like they're starting from scratch.

 

They've shown in the past that they'd share components with other models in the lineup - obviously most notably is the platform.  But if they can also use one of the existing dashes - be it Escape or Maverick, those are additional savings as well.

 

 

----

 

BS isn't quite there yet, but let's say it gets to 20k/month - that's 240k/year.

Let's say Maverick winds up selling half that - that's 120k/year for 360k/year total

 

If there's a 400k capacity, that leaves 40k for TC, which is about where it's been.

 

But that doesn't leave much room for growth of any of the 3 without some sort of expansion.

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8 hours ago, GearheadGrrrl said:

I'm not so optimistic- Ford may just as likely screw up the TC. Ford has already committed Hermosillo to building 2 different boxy "trucklets"- Bronco Sport and Maverick- And how much capacity is there to build a third van shaped car there? Then there's the economics- With ROW getting a badge engineered VW Caddy van, the North American market is maybe 40k vehicles a year- Not enough to justify tooling up a whole new van. That leaves Ford the options of bringing over the current TC's tooling and building it at Hermasillo with a few updates, or stretching the Maverick's body and maybe raising the roof into a "sedan delivery" which while "cheep 'n' cheerful" would lose a lot of the TC's van utility.  

I apologise in advance if this sounds condescending,

You don’t understand the origins of this project or the evolution of C1 to C2 because if you did, you would realise that the base engineering modules were developed first with C2 weight reductions and provision for hybrid batteries baked in to the  van modules that were then adapted for use in Maverick and the cancelled SUV, the van is probably the easiest of the three to do.

 

It’s similar to Gen 2 T6 in that Bronco went first but all the engineering for Ranger and and Everest is still in place, it’s s the same deal for Transit Connect going from C1 to C2, most of the work is either carry over or already done in the early stages.

 

Hermosillo can turn out up to 350k in a year on three shifts and one body plant, there’s still provision to work weekends if needed…

Edited by jpd80
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