Automotive News Europe - April 2020 - 11

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

Q&A

Electric Drive

have a full-electric car until later in the year. That being
said, the Kuga is a very good business for us.

Autonomous Driving

Ford's 2021 van lineup will include the plug-in hybrid
Transit Custom and a full-electric version of the Transit. We have heard your partner StreetScooter will
stop making electric vans because they aren't profitable. What is the trajectory of the electric van market?
I won't discuss StreetScooter's business. As for us, we
are doing a lot of thinking now about how fast the electric van market is going to grow. Some of the 2-ton van
market is going to be highly applicable to an electric
cycle. Others less so. If you are operating in cities with
a duty cycle that is appropriate, the market can grow
very, very quickly. It's about getting it right for the customer. If you have a 30-km-a-day duty cycle and you
have got a 100-kilowatt-hour battery in there, that is a
huge amount of wasted assets sitting in your van.

Laboratory Testing

Shared Services

Connectivity

Does that mean the electric Transit will have a range
of battery sizes?
We can certainly arrange it. And for some people a plug-in
hybrid might be the right thing.
Ford will get an electric car underpinned by Volkswagen
Group's MEB platform as part of your collaboration. Will
you do a second car?
The first vehicle due in 2023 remains our plan. We have an
opportunity to do a second vehicle. The direction of travel
to electric is clear, but the question is, how fast? That will
be dictated by supply, by how attractive the products are
and the infrastructure.
Will Ford's first MEB-based car be a compact SUV?
You have to be very careful. It's easy to say, "That is what's
selling today so let's do eight of those." These are vehicles
that will arrive three, four or five years from now. Therefore,
we need to understand where the market is going. We are
very focused on the fact that these products will be Fords.
They will look like a Ford, drive like a Ford, feel like a Ford
and will be built by Ford.

Test Area Testing
Certification

Where will Ford's MEB-based cars be produced?
We haven't decided yet, but it will be in Europe.
Does Europe have enough battery supply to produce
electric cars on the scale that Ford and other automakers say they are planning?
We have secured the battery supply for our plants and we
are confident we will get that.
Even for the plug-in hybrids such as Transit Connect?
Yes. For the Transit Connect plug-in hybrid, I wish I
could go back a couple of years and increase the numbers planned. Three years ago we were really struggling
[to predict demand]. We were asking: "Does this make
sense? Can we make any money? What will the volume
be? Will the customers be there?" But the margins are
much better than we expected and orders are good. They
are more than I can supply.
Where does Ford get the batteries that are used in
the Transit Connect?
They are out of Holland, Michigan. It's actually the same
battery pack that goes in the Explorer plug-in hybrid. ANE

APRIL 2020

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Automotive News Europe - April 2020

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