New automobile gross sales are down considerably this 12 months, together with at Ford the place complete gross sales had been off about 8% final month. That’s the unhealthy information. The excellent news is that Ford’s gross sales of electrical automobiles doubled to six,255 items in November. That’s up 103% in comparison with final November. Total, EVs accounted for 4.5% of all Ford gross sales, which makes the Blue Oval model the second finest promoting EV model within the US behind Tesla.
“Ford share of the electrical automobile section expanded about 2 share factors over a 12 months in the past — standing at 8.6 % share for the month. Ford’s electrical automobiles are conquesting from competitor automobiles at a price of over 60 % this 12 months,” the corporate says. Its lineup of electrical automobiles contains one passenger automobile (the Mustang Mach-E), a truck (the F-150 Lightning), and light-commercial van (the E-Transit van).
Deutsche Publish Orders 2,000 E-Transit Vans
The E-Transit flies below most individuals’s radar, however Ford is seeing a pleasant uptick in gross sales every month. It signed an settlement this week to offer 2,000 E-Transit vans to Deutsche Publish by the top of 2023. The settlement covers a full suite of options to function the electrical fleet, together with entry to Ford Professional’s linked E-Telematics software program and charging options with a view to scale back prices and optimize effectivity.
Deutsche Publish will make investments €7 billion this decade to satisfy its aim of turning into a net-zero-emissions logistics firm. To get there, it’s focusing on a share of 60 % e-vehicles used for carbon-neutral pickup and supply by 2030. It at the moment has about 27,000 automobiles in its international fleet.
“Ford Professional and Deutsche Publish DHL Group share the imaginative and prescient of better sustainability and a dedication to electrified options, and this settlement is a significant step in the direction of thousands and thousands of deliveries being accomplished by electrified automobiles all over the world. E-Transit is the top-selling business EV in North America and since June can be the best-seller in its section in Europe, which means the all-electric 2-tonne van is already making huge strides to assist this ambition,” mentioned Hans Schep, basic supervisor for Ford Professional of Europe.
A big a part of the order contains E-Transit panel vans designed for dealing with specific shipments within the Americas and in Europe. Among the vans might be specifically outfitted with a custom-made field for inside metropolis distribution in Germany by Ford Professional Particular Automobiles.
Ramping Up Manufacturing Of The Ford F-150 Lightning
Picture courtesy of Ford
Ford says it has 200,000 reservations for its electrical pickup truck, the F-150 Lightning. “That shocked us. I believe it shocked quite a bit within the business, how prepared individuals already had been for electrical automobiles,” says Darren Palmer, head of Ford’s electrical automobile program. As we reported just lately, Ford was additionally shocked by the demand for the Mustang Mach-E. It’s speeding to develop the manufacturing unit in Mexico the place the Mach-E is assembled and it’s doing the identical on the manufacturing unit in Michigan the place it producers the F-150 Lightning.
“They’re really constructing a manufacturing unit virtually the identical dimension alongside the one which’s producing in the meanwhile,” Palmer says. “We needed to lower the partitions open once more and begin once more.” Dealing with the surge in demand has been a “big piece of labor. It should take most of this 12 months and a few of subsequent 12 months simply to transform the reservations,” he added. Ford has not accepted any new reservations for the truck since December of final 12 months. When the renovations are full, the manufacturing unit will have the ability to manufacture 150,000 electrical pickup vehicles a 12 months.
Linda Zhang, the Lightning’s chief engineer, tells Enterprise Insider she initially needed to persuade her colleagues to purchase the truck, however now it’s successful over clients who by no means owned an EV, in addition to youthful drivers who hadn’t beforehand purchased a Ford.
Palmer thinks the F-150 Lightning will go down in historical past because the automobile that introduced EVs into the mainstream within the US. He says there’s extra to come back, with a renewed deal with in-car know-how within the subsequent part of Ford’s EV program. “The issues we’re going to herald the subsequent three years are simply thoughts blowing. They’re doing issues that automobiles by no means did earlier than,” he provides.
CleanTechnica readers might scratch their heads and surprise why Ford (and GM and Stellantis) had been so skeptical in regards to the demand for electrical automobiles. An enormous a part of which will have concerned simply not desirous to disturb the goose that laid the golden egg. The F-150 has been an enormous success for Ford and one of the worthwhile automobiles ever offered. It’s comprehensible why it wouldn’t wish to mess with such success.
However Ford has dedicated to investing $50 billion to its electrical automobile efforts. That’s no small factor. Seeing the rise in gross sales — which is modest however regular — has bought to be a fantastic reduction to Ford executives.
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