In a tip of the hat to Ford’s historic melee with Ferrari at Le Mans, Ford executive chairman Bill Ford has said that the Blue Oval’s first electric crossover will ‘go like hell’, Automotive News reported. This signals a change in how the automaker views its electric vehicles, where its early efforts, like those of other manufacturers, were known more for economy than excitement.
“When we first started talking about electrification, there was this thought that there had to be a trade-off; it was either going to be green and boring and no fun, or really exciting but burn a lot of fossil fuels. Electrification has come to the point that you can do both,” Ford said.
The new Mustang-inspired EV will have a range of more than 500 km, the report said, and while production was originally planned to be in Flat Rock, Michigan, Ford had decided last year that it will instead be built in Mexico. A dedicated business unit named Team Edison has been created and tasked with handling the production of Ford’s EV models, and will be based in Corktown, Detroit.
Ford is spending approximately $740 million (RM3.012 billion) on the Corktown location as the centrepiece for a new campus that will comprise suppliers, software developers, tech startups and potentially even other automakers, the report said. Reuters reported last year that Volkswagen could use a Ford facility for assembly, and the two automakers will also be co-developing commercial vehicles.
Volkswagen therefore could, in theory, lease space in the building. “It could be them. Anybody who wants to come down and be part of this ecosystem, we’d love it,” said Ford. As for the fully electric crossover itself, a trademark application filing was sighted last December and suggests the potential use of either ‘Mach E’ or ‘Mach-E’ as its name. The trademarked names could be used on more than one model, and a forthcoming electrified Mustang is likely, too.
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