Ford Plans Battery-Electric Cargo Van for U.S. Commercial Market
By John O'Dell December 17, 2008
Ford Motor Co., the domestic carmaker that's not facing imminent bankruptcy, plans to bring a small electric van to market in the U.S. and the blogosphere is abuzz with speculation, revved up by an article in the trade journal Automotive News
, that it will be based on the compact Ford Transit Connect cargo van built in Turkey and sold in Europe.
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Could Smith Ampere (foreground) be Ford's new electric cargo van?
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The buzz is probably correct. After all, Ford of Europe already has teamed up with Britain's Smith Electric Vehicles to bring a Transit Connect EV to market -- it was previewed by Green Car Advisor way back in April, when it was formally announced in the U.K. at a commercial truck show.
The van is co-branded as the Ford-Smith Ampere and was jointly developed by Ford and Smith's parent, Tanfield Group.
The European van has a payload capacity of almost 1,800 pounds (800 kilograms), a top speed of 70 miles an hour and a range of 100 miles on a single charge of its lithium-ion battery pack (which, for the battery wonks in the crowd, uses iron phosphate chemistry). We imagine a Ford electric cargo van for the U.S. would pencil out about the same.
Ford previously had announced that it was bringing a conventional version of the Transit Connect to the U.S. next year, so it's no big stretch to figure that an electric version would follow.
The interesting wrinkle here is that Smith Electric Vehicles has said it will sell the Amphere EV cargo van -- its electric version of the Transit Connnect -- in the U.S.
No word yet on whether Ford is planning to simply buy its Transit EVs from Smith or plans to compete directly with the British firm's co-developed version of the truck.
Ford is expected to reveal more of its EV plans during the upcoming Detroit auto show (press preview days are January 11-13), so stay tuned.
John O'Dell, Senior Editor
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