Small EVs are a big market abroad—a stark contrast to the gigantic offerings like the Ford F-150 Lightning and the plethora of electric SUVs that are prevalent in the U.S. But the small EV market here is growing, and Ford is getting in on the action. The automaker is pivoting to smaller—and cheaper—electric vehicles.
Ford CEO Jim Farley first revealed the pivot on an earnings call in early February. “We made a bet in silence two years ago,” he said, according to MotorTrend, revealing that a skunk works team acting as a startup began working on a low-cost EV back then, in order to better compete with electric vehicles from Chinese automakers.
Now, there are more details on just how affordable those new Ford EVs will be: Bloomberg Businessweek reported this week that the first model will arrive in late 2026, starting around $25,000. (The F-150 Lightning starts at $54,995, while Ford’s electric SUV, the Mustang Mach-E, starts around $43,000.)
Ford is working on its small EVs through a “specialized team” that is based in Irvine, California, Bloomberg reports. That team—made up of fewer than 100 people—is led by Alan Clarke, who was previously at Tesla for 12 years. There, he led the engineering of the Model Y, the company’s top seller; Clarke moved to Ford in 2022.
The compact EVs for Ford will be powered by a “lithium iron phosphate battery, which is about 30% cheaper than traditional lithium-ion batteries,” according to Bloomberg, noting that the company is continuing to explore even cheaper battery tech.
“All of our EV teams are ruthlessly focused on cost and efficiency in our EV products, because the ultimate competition is going to be the affordable Tesla and the Chinese OEMs [original equipment manufacturers],” Farley said on the February analyst call. Tesla is also working on a cheaper EV, which is also expected to go for $25,000. Tesla CEO Elon Musk first mentioned that goal in 2020; now, he’s said that the cheaper model will launch in 2025.
I don’t know whether Ford can make a competitive product or not but this is the right thing to do. EVs being $40K+ (most more than $50K) has left a huge price umbrella for competitors.
Inexpensive products like BYD and Vinfast are going to destroy Ford’s market share unless something is done — either Ford has a competitive product or protectionist legislation is passed.
Yeah everyone is laughing at how awful the vin fast suv is right now but they fail to realize how fucking fast that company has gone from no cars ever to models on sale in the US.
If that pace is any indicator going Forward they will have something paletable within 5 years.
Anything could happen, but they are definitely serious about giving it a go.
I have absolutely no faith whatsoever that Ford can create a competitive product that’s good for consumers. Not to mention the fact that MSRP is fairy dust when Ford still sells through dealerships only. There’s no way that this thing’s getting off the lot for under $35k.
Absolutely true. They cracked the $25,000 EV goal. It’s on sale now for $40,000.
I can’t even think of the last time that Ford hit a MSRP goal. The F-150 Lightening was supposed to be sub-$40k.
Ford. The same company that decided to stop making sedans a couple of years ago. Make up your damned minds and stop flailing around.
It doesn’t say compact car, just compact. Probably Escape (Focus size) or Ecosport (Fiesta size). Between CAFE having different, lower requirements for “light trucks” (such as the PT cruiser) and other fed regs saying ground clearance is all you need to get other lower reqs for being an “offroad-capable” vehicle, I doubt it’s coming as a car. Maybe a lifted Focus, a la Subaru Crosstrek being a lifted Impreza, will be the ultimate taunt.
Probably not escape size. I have an escape and a MachE(their electric compact SUV). They’re about the same size in terms of capacity. In fact the escape may have a bit more height to it on the inside.
That’s reasonable, but maybe it could be a styling difference. The Edge really doesn’t need to exist functionally, slotted so tightly between the Escape and Explorer. The Edge does have a bulkier presence than the Escape, but the interior doesn’t really make as much use of that volume as it could. It does have better rear seating and a slightly deeper trunk area, but the slope cuts into the trunk area. I worked at a dealer and it seemed people were more interested in the looks to decide between the two rather than stats. That being said, I’m not gonna be mad if it’s a relatively cheap EVoSport or whatever other dumb name they have on deck.
Thinking on this again, since a reply brought me back, I could actually see it coming in as a compact car. Make-beleive trucks sell so damn well that I’m not positive it won’t be a tippy Fiesta, but I’m sure the stricter efficiency requirements on cars compared to “trucks” was a driving factor of eliminating sedans. Those rules wouldn’t (yet) apply to EVs
I’m amazed no one has brought back the El Camino style truck/sedan as an EV.
That would be useful, but I think there’s issues with single grow seating vehicles. Anything imported gets a higher tax rate, even for domestic companies. Going back, that’s why the Subaru Brat had bed seats. Ford’s Turkish Transit Connects came through the port with laughable rear seats and windowed rear doors that got removed and scrapped once stateside. Chicken tax. I’m not sure if it counts for Mexico assembly, but I thought that’s why the Maverick is only a 4-door with a short bed. Truck-like ground clearance and steep approach angles (making it an offroad capable vehicle) also gets a lower fuel economy bracket, which has been a driving factor for crossover prevalence. That’s why we have Lexus crossovers with overbite. I’d certainly consider an EV Camino for commute/building runs, but I’m guessing the main Camino demographic would only want a new Camino to be a 1976 body with a modern V8 and no electronics
Compact car, or compact “crossover”?
Because lord knows we need more compact crossovers.
A lot of electric cars tends to be crossovers because the increased height make it easy to fit the battery on the bottom of the car while keeping enough height for a comfortable interior.
If they are priced the same they sell better, its that simple.
Older people, fat peopleand tall people dont want to have to sit “down” into a car, they want to back up into the seat and have it be at arse height. People with kids and back problems dont want to have to bend themselves in half to get something out of the boot or off the back seat.
The only people who want low cars are young people who cant afford to move out of their parents house, let alone a brand new car or old sports car enthusiasts who want sports cars.
I’m a fat tall person and I significantly prefer cars lower to the ground.
i Need a base range of 240 miles. Less then that and no can.
That totally might be true for you, I’m not doubting, but I think the vast majority of people don’t need more than 100 miles of range in reality. Most people drive to work and the grocery store, plus some other short drives here and there. That’s about it. Americans have been fooled into thinking we drive more than we actually do, because cars are closely associated with personal freedom and road trip culture.
I’d prefer to see more volume of cheaper electric cars with shorter ranges than a few expensive electric cars with long ranges that mostly just sit in peoples’ driveway. 25K still seems high to me.
I’ve been driving a gen 1 leaf for several years. If you want to slow/ stop adoption, low range vehicles and the experience that comes with them is precisely how to do so. Its a real problem. I get and hear your arguments, but they fall flat when pushed against the lived experience. In fact, even your suggestions here make me think you don’t own an EV or have to any experience with driving one, so I’ll share my experience.
First off, you can not count on getting a charge away from the home. Between broken chargers, removed chargers, the system not working, the chargers being occupied, or there just not being one any where close to where you need to go, you simply can not rely on getting a charge away from where you park and know you can absolutely get one (even if its a trickle charge). You can argue that we need a more robust charging network, but that’s a separate issue from their unreliability or even existence. The on the ground situation is that you have to treat charging outside of where you know you can get it as a nice to have, not a need to have, or you will find yourself stuck. I’ve been there too many times waiting in line at the charging station for two hours so I can then charge for 30 minutes to an hour to get all the way home. That’s three hours of my day gone because my car doesn’t have enough range. I simply can-not afford that. If that happens to me once in a month, another 50 dollars on my car payment for a car with a larger battery is a non-issue.
Second, some times you need to make more than two trips in a day, which is about all 100 miles in range is good for. These times are less common but you should keep a driving journal. I bet you do 150+ miles in a day at least once a month. The US is an extremely spread out place. If I wanted to go to Home Depot or similar big box, the average drive time for me over the last 3 places I’ve lived is 35 minutes, one way. We all know its impossible to get everything you need in one trip to the homeless despot, so if I need to double back because I forgot a widget, I’m now properly fucked and need to charge. Saturday is now gone and my home repair project is pushed into Sunday. Thanks e-waste equivalent EV. Added to this is the issue of weight and drag. I get probably 30% better range when I’m driving alone. If I start adding weight, my power consumption increases dramatically. 100 miles of range will quickly turn turn into 50 miles of range if I’ve got bags of soil, or lumber, or strawbales, or any number of other things I regularly need to pick up from a home goods or farm store. Four fat friends want to hop in the whip and go for a drive? Good luck.
Third, rain or other inclimate weather. When you start paying attention to EV performance, its straight up shocking what a headwind or even a light rain on the road can do to your range. I really never considered how sticky water is until I needed to become battery conscious. Where this becomes a real issue is if you’ve planned your trip to be all good in hollywood based on decent weather, and for the first half of you trip you are fine. But then weather comes in and you don’t have the range to finish your trip because a storm moved through. I’ve also heard cold weather impacts capacity, although i can’t speak to that directly.
And heres the crux of it. One bad experience is all it takes to turn someone off for life. Lower capacity batteries lead directly to these bad experiences, and having now owned and lived on an EV for years, I would never in my wildest dreams consider buying one with less than 200 miles of range, with 240 being a pretty firm lower bound for me that I might negotiate on in exceptional cases. A vehicle with that little range is more environmentally damaging than a heavier, more expensive EV because its basically E-waste as soon as you’ve rolled off the lot. An EV with 240 range is a vehicle you’ll own, love, and enjoy for life. An EV with less than 100 miles in range? You’ve turned some one off from EV’s forever.
I want to point out also that embedded in your sentiment is a judgement of how things “should be”, in that you say Amercians “have been fooled”. Which is fine. Maybe things should be that way. But appreciate that things are where they are, and the context of only having to drive to the grocery store and back or only to work is simply not true. People do use their cars, alot. American infrastructure is built around it. Maybe things should be another way, but they are the way they are, and 100 miles of range is simply going to reduce/ prevent EV adoption.
Not your commenter, but I appreciate your laid-out feedback on the <100mi EV. The first gen Leaf is exactly what I’m shopping for due to the continued (although reduced) price gouging of used EVs/hybrids since 2020. If I was in your situation where Home Depot was 35 minutes away, I’m not sure I’d even go for a hybrid. Sounds like mostly 50mph+ roads so a great gas car might work better, unless you’re in a hilly/mountainous area that would hurt the climb of a low power gas car too. However, I live somewhere with at least 10 HDs within 35 minutes. Based on some rough math, 20% of the US population is within that 240 mile range from me. I would guess 75% of them have less than a 20 minute drive, mostly fuels by slower roads and traffic. That’s just one of the main pop hubs in the country, so I beleive 35+ minutes each way for errands may not be true for half the population.
That’s not to say you’re wrong, of course, not at all. I applaud your dedication to the platform I have not yet myself gotten on board with. I’d like to, but price has been a barrier until recently with a crossover between market, salary, and need. That’s been my choice by being cheap and choosing to have multiple enthusiast vehicles (including my 23mpg-city 4x4 commuter smaller than a miata) worth $3k each. But now that I can work remote when it snows, I don’t have parking constraints now, and I never actually went wheeling in the 4x4, I’m really considering trading it out for a lower EV.
So what’s my point? I think your conversation above is really highlighting a divide - likely intentional from above but unintentional from you - about whether EV can work or not. You’re living the life where it’s not very compatible as a sole vehicle, but making it work anyway. Most people in your situation seem to beleive EV will simply never work. There’s a misinformation act to take the “all cars must be EV by 2035” to mean gas is gone, when in reality it means all models must have an EV version available. I beleive we’re stuck in a his&hers situation with vehicles too. I drive a shitbox I don’t like on the highway for more than 20 minutes and my highway cruise missile car is often broken. So we take my wife’s car often for trips. My commuter could be easily swapped for a ratty 80 mile Leaf and never have range issues. That’s my situation but I beleive it applies more broadly. I did the math once and figured the average car-owning household (so removing carless people) has 1.3 cars per adult. So most households have a car per person and many have spare cars in some way. And that’s no even getting into the American dream vacation of 800 miles per day being absurd and incredibly rare. This fuels a greater divide where rural folks get mad at city folks for pushing EV or, worse, enjoy and thrive with an EV. This country is so drastically diverse in density and geography. It fuels this idea that states, the land masses, are sentient and therefore big states are more representative of the country. But that’s not a country, people are. And, as exemplified by overbearing Border Patrol allowances, 2/3 of the US population is within their jurisdiction because 2/3 of the population lives within 100 miles of a border. That means the entire interior, I estimate 3/4 of the land, has 1/3 of the population. In no way am I saying that 1/3 should be forgotten or bullied. But I beleive that overepresentation of that actual need for greater range spills too far into the cushy suburbs where an EV would only benefit from the traffic compared to gas. That then morphs into a fear of the government taking everything away. Probably by design.
I still don’t really know where I was going anymore. You’ve provided a great recount of how rough a <100mi EV can be debilitating. I’m still convinced an old Leaf is perfect. I still hope they’ll make those <100mi range EVs but with appreciably lower cost.
lol. This type of stuff is exactly what I expect to see if Ford even manages to deliver on this.
Fedi is full of conversations about how “we need small cheap EVs. This is why you’re not selling EVs”.
When it gets here, that same group will have a laundry list of further requirements as reasons why they will not be buying the thing they said they wanted.
I say all this as an EV owner (go Polestar!).
Well you get states like Florida who pass bills that restrict direct sales to consumers by manufacturers insuring there is a median which will inevitably drive prices up.
Bills like that are what will make this 25k car end at 40 like you were discussing.
We’re all guilty of it too. Im currently in love with the JDM Alto works, it ticks every current box I need in a daily and a BUNCH of things I want, its reasonably priced and blah blah blah.
Theoretical me would buy one tomorrow if my car chucked a rod through the block or got written off but my 08 Volvo wagon just keeps running and my money is finite.
08 Volvo wagon just keeps running and my money is finite
P2/3 Volvos are one of the best kept secrets in the car world. Dirt cheap but dead reliable. What kind of wagon do you got?
Is this for road trip purposes, or do you actually drive 200+ miles any given day? If it’s the latter, that would easily be 50k+ miles per year.
There are reasonable reasons for wanting a greater range than you expect to use on a regular basis. Not the least of which is a power outage or your own home charger choosing an inopportune moment to kick the bucket, as you are your own gas station manager.
Not at all for road trip purposes. That’s just for commuting and basic use. I know what I need after driving an EV for a couple years.
I’m not doubting at all. My car only has about 130 miles of range in good weather, but I typically drive less than 20 miles in a day. I thought the range was going to be an issue when I got the car, but it hasn’t been at all. My partner drives way more than I do, though, so she still has an ICE car.
