Ford: I See Your Volt and Raise You a Transit Connect
Ford’s press release lays down markers for its electric powered vehicle offerings. First up, an all electric version of the Transit Connect small commercial vehicle for 2010. But wait, the Electric Transit Connect is actually the work of Smith Electric Vehicles, a UK based company which has been re-powering conventional commercial vehicles for years. No surprise then that Ford’s Electric Transit Connect looks and specs out just like Smith’s “ Ampere” (pdf). This makes Ford’s PR spin a bit hard to swallow when they say: “The initiative leverages the “One Ford” global strategy, delivering pure battery electric power for commercial applications on a global platform.” Slapping your name on someone else’s work must be the newest definition of “One Ford.” Further on, Ford is promising a full electric small car for 2011 and its Volt-zapping plug-in hybrid fin 2012. One can only hope the promised “full electric small car” doesn’t have the name Zap hidden under it somewhere.
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To set the record straight: RobertSD : February 9th, 2009 at 10:49 pm Transit: a much larger van, closer in size to the Sprinter (well, with many sizes, in fact). The Transit was developed in Europe with NA in mind (it was not primarily engineered in NA unless I’m completely crazy all of a sudden). For the The big Transit Van was developed in North America (Dearborn) for the 2000 model year by an international team with a heavy contingent of Americans. Europe (primarily Britain and Germany) sent a number key management and engineering people to work with the NA team. Several Americans sipported the production launch at the Genk Assembly Plant in Belgium.
To set the record straight: RobertSD : February 9th, 2009 at 10:49 pm Transit: a much larger van, closer in size to the Sprinter (well, with many sizes, in fact). The Transit was developed in Europe with NA in mind (it was not primarily engineered in NA unless I’m completely crazy all of a sudden). For the The big Transit Van was developed in North America (Dearborn) for the 2000 model year by an international team with a heavy contingent of Americans. Europe (primarily Britain and Germany) sent a number key management and engineering people to work with the NA team. Several Americans supported the production launch at the Genk Assembly Plant in Belgium.
To set the record straight: RobertSD : February 9th, 2009 at 10:49 pm Transit: a much larger van, closer in size to the Sprinter (well, with many sizes, in fact). The Transit was developed in Europe with NA in mind (it was not primarily engineered in NA unless I’m completely crazy all of a sudden). For the The big Transit Van was developed in North America (Dearborn) for the 2000 model year by an international team with a heavy contingent of Americans. Europe (primarily Britain and Germany) sent a number key management and engineering people to work with the NA team. Several Americans supported the production launch at the Genk Assembly Plant in Belgium. The Transit was refreshed in 2007 and this was done at the Dunton Enginnering Centre in the UK with some inpit from Dearborn.
To set the record straight: RobertSD : February 9th, 2009 at 10:49 pm Transit: a much larger van, closer in size to the Sprinter (well, with many sizes, in fact). The Transit was developed in Europe with NA in mind (it was not primarily engineered in NA unless I’m completely crazy all of a sudden). For the The big Transit Van was developed in North America (Dearborn) for the 2000 model year by an international team with a heavy contingent of Americans. Europe (primarily Britain and Germany) sent a number key management and engineering people to work with the NA team. Several Americans supported the production launch at the Genk Assembly Plant in Belgium. The Transit was refreshed in 2007 and this was done at the Dunton Engineering Centre in the UK with some input from Dearborn.