All-New Ford Transit Courier Officially Launches in Europe

[DeluxeStang]

59 minutes ago, ice-capades said:

 

Former Ford CEO Alan Mulally must be shaking his head seeing what's been happening at Boeing and knowing first-hand from his own engineering background the critical importance of engineering quality and seeing again what happens when the Boeing CEO is a CPA willing to overlook engineering needs to cut costs and maximize profits. 

That has to be frustrated, having dedicated years of your life to improving the quality of multiple brands, and then seeing them slink back to their old ways after you left. It's happened with Boeing and Ford unfortunately, Boeing to a more noticable extent. 

[akirby]

I really struggle to understand why this keeps happening.  On the one hand you have greedy people who just want to take the money and run and dont care about long term consequences.  But then you have the inexperienced who haven’t lived through the long term effects and haven’t made all those mistakes before.  And a management culture that allows it to happen.

 

 

[Rick73]

2 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

How difficult would it be to take that planetary gear CVT, and engineer it to work without the electric motors for pure ICE applications? Would that even be doable, or would engineers essentially need to reengineer the transmission from scratch?

I don’t see how that would be possible since electric CVT varies effective gear ratio by varying the electric motor’s speed.  I can see Ford developing a smaller version of Maverick eCVT for much smaller vehicles, or else upgrade the new 7-speed DCT to hybrid.  Just a guess on my part, but expect the 7-speed may have already been designed with hybrid application in mind.  If not, it would seem shortsighted. 

 

 

 

[jpd80]

Sorry, late to the discussion but a little digging shows that Transit Courier  is built with Puma at Craiova plant in Romania and is basically a development of the Fiesta platform. It looks like Ford made this van big enough to replace the SWB Transit Connect possibly because the TC is switching to VW Caddy platform …….

Edited January 16 by jpd80

[jpd80]

18 minutes ago, Rick73 said:

I don’t see how that would be possible since electric CVT varies effective gear ratio by varying the electric motor’s speed.  I can see Ford developing a smaller version of Maverick eCVT for much smaller vehicles, or else upgrade the new 7-speed DCT to hybrid.  Just a guess on my part, but expect the 7-speed may have already been designed with hybrid application in mind.  If not, it would seem shortsighted. 

This is more of a Ford Europe vs Ford North America thing, Europeans prefer the 7-speed DCT because it feels and drives like an automated manual transmission. US based customers prefer a true automatic and the E-CVT is evolved from the 6F transmission and tooling. So yeah, probably more to do with perceived customer preference.

Edited January 16 by jpd80

[Rick73]

1 hour ago, DeluxeStang said:

Boeing's culture has fallen apart in recent years, and the planes along with it. The 737 max 8 was Boeing's pinto moment. A highly respected American brand rushing a product to market in a desperate effort to compete with foreign brands, who in their development frenzy, overlooked a critical safety issue that got a lot of people killed, even after the issue was addressed, it left an enduring mark on the company. 

An example of taking shortcuts because doing it right would have cost too much and or taken too long.  Various articles from years ago implied Boeing was planning to replace the old 737 with a narrow-body twin-aisle 7-across (2-3-2) carbon-fiber airplane IIRC.  It was to be a smaller version of 787 Dreamliner.  Instead, Boeing ended up modifying 737 in an effort to make it more efficient which led to other issues.  As much as I would have personally liked seeing a new aircraft,  I’m not critical of Boeing’s decision because its cost may have been prohibitive.  And if fuel costs remain low, justifying a new more-efficient aircraft to replace 737 will be even harder (short of a design breakthrough).

[Rick73]

32 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

This is more of a Ford Europe vs Ford North America thing, Europeans prefer the 7-speed DCT because it feels and drives like an automated manual transmission. US based customers prefer a true automatic but the E-CVT is evolved from the 6F transmission and tooling. So yeah, probably more to do with perceived customer preference.

Hyundai/Kia hybrids using their 6-speed DCT are doing quite well with discrete gear ratios.  The F-150 Hybrid with 10-speed automatic also has discrete ratios.  As long as gear spacing is good, I don’t think it will be an issue for most buyers.

 

For what it’s worth, I don’t enjoy driving CVTs.  I prefer the feeling of gear changes.

[DeluxeStang]

2 hours ago, Rick73 said:

I don’t see how that would be possible since electric CVT varies effective gear ratio by varying the electric motor’s speed.  I can see Ford developing a smaller version of Maverick eCVT for much smaller vehicles, or else upgrade the new 7-speed DCT to hybrid.  Just a guess on my part, but expect the 7-speed may have already been designed with hybrid application in mind.  If not, it would seem shortsighted. 

 

 

 

Interesting, learning a lot with this. So it's not just a transmission paired with electric motors, the electric motors are what actually controls the gearing. You learn something new everyday. 

[jpd80]

9 hours ago, Rick73 said:

Hyundai/Kia hybrids using their 6-speed DCT are doing quite well with discrete gear ratios.  The F-150 Hybrid with 10-speed automatic also has discrete ratios.  As long as gear spacing is good, I don’t think it will be an issue for most buyers.

In global markets, the Hyundai Tucson has the 7-speed DCT transmission

but the updated 2024 hybrid is a 6-speed auto with 1.5 turbo engine.

So there’s variations within their range (we also get a diesel version).

 

Some buyers don’t like the sometimes jerkiness of a DCT shift and this is why

an automatic with a hybrid is preferred, it also simplifies the process by switching 

out the torque converter for a drive motor - that’s much harder to do with dual clutch.

Edited January 17 by jpd80

[Rick73]

8 hours ago, jpd80 said:

In global markets, the Hyundai Tucson has the 7-speed DCT transmission

but the updated 2024 hybrid is a 6-speed auto with 1.5 turbo engine.

So there’s variations within their range (we also get a diesel version).

In US the standard Tucson has 2.5L naturally-aspirated I-4 with 8-speed auto, and the hybrid 1.6L turbo with 6-speed “auto”.  Not certain if that auto could be a DCT.  EPA list it as AM-S6.

 

During steady high speed interstate driving (75 MPH), fuel economy differences between the two engine options isn’t much, as tested by Car and Driver.  Objectively, it’d be tough for me to justify the hybrid on fuel savings if doing mostly road trips.  The NA 2.5 L with its 13:1 compression ratio seems to have been designed for fuel economy more so than power.

[LSchicago]

26 minutes ago, Rick73 said:

In US the standard Tucson has 2.5L naturally-aspirated I-4 with 8-speed auto, and the hybrid 1.6L turbo with 6-speed “auto”.  Not certain if that auto could be a DCT.  EPA list it as AM-S6.

 

During steady high speed interstate driving (75 MPH), fuel economy differences between the two engine options isn’t much, as tested by Car and Driver.  Objectively, it’d be tough for me to justify the hybrid on fuel savings if doing mostly road trips.  The NA 2.5 L with its 13:1 compression ratio seems to have been designed for fuel economy more so than power.

At 75MPH in the Maverick, fuel economy is 35-38 MPG. Maybe 5 MPG more than a no hybrid. In-town local driving can easily be 20-30 MPG more than a non-hybrid. That is where Hybrids shine. 335-345 days a year, I drive locally. 20-30 days a year, I hit the highway. Hybrid makes a lot of sense in my case.

 

Yes the Hybrid was designed for economy, but 15.7 in the 1/4 mile is not bad for a truck that has the best fuel economy of all trucks. It's not the slowest pickup at all. 

[silvrsvt]

25 minutes ago, LSchicago said:

Yes the Hybrid was designed for economy, but 15.7 in the 1/4 mile is not bad for a truck that has the best fuel economy of all trucks. It's not the slowest pickup at all. 

 

That is roughly what a 30 year old Mustang GT did in the 1/4 mile...

[LSchicago]

14 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

 

That is roughly what a 30 year old Mustang GT did in the 1/4 mile...

Or about the same as a Mid 60's 300HP 327/auto Vette too. 

[DeluxeStang]

1 hour ago, silvrsvt said:

 

That is roughly what a 30 year old Mustang GT did in the 1/4 mile...

Yeah, it's definitely not a slow truck. I wouldn't call it a rocketship, but it's the most effortless 0-30 mph acceleration I've ever experienced in a "normal" car, as in something that wasn't a performance vehicle. 

 

It does tend to struggle a little bit once you're getting up to about 70 and beyond, but below that, not bad at all. I threw the keys to a family member once, following behind in another car, and they didn't even realize they were speeding. 

[Rick73]

1 hour ago, LSchicago said:

Or about the same as a Mid 60's 300HP 327/auto Vette too. 

Yeah, average family sedans with V8s, like a Dodge with 318 cubic inch engine my dad owned, would do 0-60 in about 10 seconds, and that was considered “normal”.  Definitely not a hot rod, but drivers didn’t complain about them being slow either.  Slow was same car with slant 6.  Even today, any vehicle that can accelerate to 60 MPH in 10 seconds or get up to 80 MPH in a quarter mile is plenty fast for me to drive.  Slow is driving a motorhome that takes 20+ seconds to 60. ? 

 

 

[CurtisH]

2 hours ago, Rick73 said:

Yeah, average family sedans with V8s, like a Dodge with 318 cubic inch engine my dad owned, would do 0-60 in about 10 seconds, and that was considered “normal”.  Definitely not a hot rod, but drivers didn’t complain about them being slow either.  Slow was same car with slant 6.  Even today, any vehicle that can accelerate to 60 MPH in 10 seconds or get up to 80 MPH in a quarter mile is plenty fast for me to drive.  Slow is driving a motorhome that takes 20+ seconds to 60. ? 

 

 

We definitely have different standards.  Anything over 7 seconds, maybe 7.5, is too slow for me.  I don’t use that much acceleration all the time, but it is nice to have once in a while. 

[LSchicago]

22 hours ago, CurtisH said:

We definitely have different standards.  Anything over 7 seconds, maybe 7.5, is too slow for me.  I don’t use that much acceleration all the time, but it is nice to have once in a while. 

The Maverick Hybrid is 7.5-7.6 0-60. Which I think is good for a 4 banger truck that is designed for gas mileage. My 68 Tbird with a 429 I thought was fast in 1982 did 7.7. But my 2018 Mustang rips to 60 in under 3 seconds. All what you are used to. 

[Captainp4]

The chassis tuning, computer control and NVH make a HUGE difference in how fast something "feels" too. My 78 bronco with ~450hp and my 96 f350 "tuned up" 7.3 with a 5 speed feel and sound violent 0-60, but they're roughly the same time as my completely stock 2010 6.4 that does it with little noise or effort. Fairly stock Foxbody I had years ago felt more violent than 600+hp s197s I've ridden in that would absolutely decimate it. EVs are nearly silent ripping off 0-60 times that only the loudest hi-po ICE engine could dream of. etc

[Deanh]

On 1/16/2024 at 12:31 PM, DeluxeStang said:

That has to be frustrated, having dedicated years of your life to improving the quality of multiple brands, and then seeing them slink back to their old ways after you left. It's happened with Boeing and Ford unfortunately, Boeing to a more noticable extent. 

NUTSHELL.... theres less pride.

[jpd80]

On 1/19/2024 at 5:08 AM, Deanh said:

NUTSHELL.... theres less pride.

Less? Was there any to begin with?