Home » Ford Is Going Hardcore Into EREVs And It’s Going To Rule

Ford Is Going Hardcore Into EREVs And It’s Going To Rule

Tmd Ford Erev Ts1
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EREV is, as far as automotive acronyms go, close to perfect. There’s an onomatopoetic quality to it you don’t get with, say, BEV or HEV. The worst might be PHEV, which sounds like what happens when you unsuccessfully try to stifle a sneeze. With an EREV, there’s “E” there, which everyone other than Jaguar associates with electricity. Then there’s “REV,” which is what a gas-powered engine does. EREV!

Ford likes the sound of it as well, with the company confirming to Bloomberg its much-anticipated pivot to Extended Range Electric Vehicles for its line of trucks, SUVs, and crossovers. This means I get to tap the “Decade of the EREV” sign again, which you know is something I love to do when I write The Morning Dump.

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It’s going to take Ford at least two years to get to this EREV future and in the interim it’ll have to do its best to fend off rivals like Hyundai/Kia and Mazda, both of whom had great months. Tesla will remain an ever-present competitor to Ford as well, although the brand continues to show weakness.

Oh, hey, remember when I wrote that long piece about the impending cost of tariffs against Mexico and Canada? It was yesterday. Those are on hold. Tariffs against China, though, are happening. I think! I don’t know. Keep your powder dry.

How Excited Are You For An EREV Super Duty?

Ford Atlas Concept
Photo: Ford

Ford has two simultaneous projects going on to prepare itself for the future. One is the so-called Skunkworks project to create a sub-$30k range of electric vehicles to stave off Chinese automakers and eat into Tesla’s waning dominance of the EV space. The other plan–much speculated on and basically confirmed today in this Bloomberg article–is a hard shift into EREVs.

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EREVs have become very popular in China, the world’s largest market for battery-powered cars, and Farley was wowed by the technology during a visit there with his executives last spring. Ford plans to offer EREV versions of its sport utility vehicles, crossover models and its big Super Duty pickup, its most popular and profitable vehicles, according to people familiar with its plans.

No automakers currently offer EREVs for sale in the US, but that will change soon. Chrysler parent Stellantis NV will be the first to offer one later this year with its Ram 1500 Ramcharger. Volkswagen AG’s new battery-powered Scout line of SUVs and trucks is slated to debut EREV versions in 2027.

Am I surprised? I’m not surprised. When the Scout was revealed to be an EREV, David made a big tweet asking automakers to consider this. The response from Ford CEO Jim Farley?

“David, interesting comments……” That’s a double ellipse. That’s six whole periods. Two hockey games! That’s a lot of innuendo.

If you’re not a huge EREV-head, allow me to briefly explain. An EREV is essentially an electric car with a gas-powered generator to provide additional range when necessary. The difference between a PHEV and an EREV is that the wheels can’t be driven by the gas-powered engine. The only EREV sold in the United States in any numbers were the BMW i3 and BMW i8 with the range-extender option. I tend to believe the Volt counts, as well, though there was a mode in which the ICE could be used to power the wheels, so David doesn’t count it even if he does love it. [Ed Note: Also, an EREV provides not only immunity to EV infrastructure inadequacies, but in theory it can be cheaper because it protects for road trip/towing use cases not with a bunch of extra heavy/pricy battery capacity, but with a cheaper and lighter gas generator. What’s more, it allows automakers to use a common platform for both fully electric and EREV powertrains. -DT]

To explain why EREVs make sense, I’ll quote from David’s follow-up piece on the inevitability of the technology:

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America is a truck and SUV market, which is why GM has axed legendary nameplates like the Chevy Impala and Malibu, and Stellantis and Ford don’t offer a single sedan today. Expecting Americans to give up SUVs and trucks for small cars in order to get more range for their money just ain’t gonna happen organically (it doesn’t help that small cars see higher fatality rates, and that in the U.S. you almost have to have a big car to feel safe). High-range small and midsize crossovers — not unsubstantial classes, to be sure — will get cheaper and cheaper as they become even more efficient, and we’re starting to see that already (see the Equinox EV, which is great) — this is a segment for which EREVs perhaps make less sense. But big trucks and big SUVs simply don’t work as affordable EVs. In fact, right now there are zero affordable, competitive electric pickup trucks or large SUVs on the American market, especially if the EV tax credit goes away.

Rivians and the long-range Kia EV9 are both too expensive, every EV pickup truck is either too pricey or can’t tow nearly far enough on a charge, and as for hard-core off-road competitors to the Wrangler and Bronco? Forget about it. Throwing 35-inch tires on an EV will damage Vehicle Demand Energy so much it just won’t work out.

I’m all for reducing Vehicle Demand Energy to reduce overall EV cost, and I’m for offering lots of lower-range models, but Americans aren’t giving up full-size pickups, large three-row SUVs, or off-roaders, and if you want to get lots of folks driving electric as quickly as possible, you’re going to have to meet them where they are.

Ford is a brand that only makes one car. Just one! It’s the Mustang. Everything else is some form of truck, SUV, or crossover. Let’s think of all the ways an EREV makes sense:

  • Super Duty Trucks: Yes
  • F-150: Yes
  • Expedition: Yes
  • Explorer: Yes
  • Bronco: Yes
  • Bronco Sport: Yes
  • Maverick: Yes
  • Mustang: Maybe?
  • Transit: Yes

The big question, of course, is hybrids. Ford sells a lot of regular HEV-style hybrids. If you build an EREV platform you ideally want it to be BEV + EREV, not BEV + EREV + ICE + HEV. For trucks that might work because packaging is easier, but anything Explorer or smaller is another question. Does this mean we’re going to get a Bronco that’s either electric or EREV?

The Scout is either EREV or BEV. The Ram platform, though, is available as an ICE-powered truck, an incoming EREV, and an electric truck that’s been delayed so the EREV Ramcharger can go to market first. Ford is going to be talking to investors on Wednesday and the question I want analysts to ask is: Where is the cutoff? At what point do you say something is either hybrid or EREV?

Either way, I love this. More efficient big trucks are a good thing. This, I hope, will move more buyers towards upgrading their homes for EV charging. It’ll show people how often they actually drive. It should lead to lower gasoline consumption and, therefore, emissions. All of this is good.

Also, just to be clear, I like to use old concept cars to introduce new ideas, so I’m using the Ford Atlas Concept from 2013 here to illustrate an EREV future for Ford. This was actually used to preview the last generation F-150, but I like the blue lights.

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January Was Another Good Month For Hybrids

2023 Honda Cr V Hybrid Powertrain
Photo: Honda

Even with some less-than-ideal weather in a lot of the country, many automakers reported strong January sales. Everyone loves a winner, so let’s start with some winners.

Honda was up 4.1% and Acura improved 0.6% over last January. Honda lumps the Prologue with all its hybrids as “electrified” vehicles, and “electrified” vehicles saw an 83.2% year-over-year increase. Sure, that’s mostly hybrids, but Honda also sold (or leased) 3,744 Prologues. That’s a lot of Prologues.

Subura had another good month, up 4.1% year-over-year. Mazda was an even bigger winner, up 11.2%. Overall, though, it’s Hyundai and Kia you’d like to be right now. Overall, the brands improved deliveries by 13.1% if you include Genesis. Hyundai was the strongest of the two with a 14.6% year-over-year increase.

Toyota sales were off by about 1.6%, though some of that may still be from a lack of inventory. While Toyota sells more cars than Honda, Honda usually has more cars to sell. One small bright spot for Toyota was the 3.8% year-over-year increase for the Prius.

EV sales are now growing faster at Ford than hybrid vehicles are, with a 21.2% year-over-year increase in EV sales led by 3,529 Mach-Es. HEVs were up just 19.2%, though those were seemingly dragged down by a drop in Maverick sales of 29.8% off a banger of a January last year. It’ll be interesting to see how the introduction of a revised Maverick will impact sales now that prices are higher.

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Most other brands report quarterly, so we’ll have to wait for registration data later this month to make broader conclusions.

Tesla Sales Are The Ultimate Rorschach Test

Models 81
Source: Tesla

Tesla was always destined to lose market share. You can’t be that successful at something and not expect other people to compete against you. Are Tesla’s declines in places like California, where EVs are expanding, a sign that the market is maturing or a sign that people don’t like Elon Musk? How you answer that question might say more about what you believe than what you know.

At the same time, is Tesla’s big 63% drop in France a sign that the French don’t like the company’s CEO and his Lost Boys/AfD antics? Or is it just that the French are nationalistic and will buy a French car before an American one?

From Bloomberg:

French government ministers late last month called for the European Commission to immediately suspend the regulation on CO2 emissions from passenger cars, warning that it could result in billions of euros going to Chinese manufacturers and Tesla, “whose CEO Elon Musk is openly attacking European regulations and values.”

Or, and hear me out, the world isn’t black-and-white and it’s a mixture of all these things plus the fact that the cars are old and need to be updated.

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Tariffs On China Will Continue

Speaking of Rorschach tests, the very short-lived tariffs against Canada and Mexico didn’t happen. Was this capitulation from Mexico and Canada? Was this President Trump getting spooked by the market? Does anything mean anything anymore? Again, the answer to that question has a lot to do with what you already believe. And for our purposes, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the tariffs are on hold for a month, and whatever happens in renegotiations to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in the next month is far more important.

The additional 10% tariff against China, which was lost in all the panic yesterday, is apparently happening. China is already responding, according to Nikkei Asia:

China’s Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday announced a 15% tariff on American coal and liquefied natural gas, as well as 10% on crude oil, farm equipment and some vehicles, all starting next Monday.

China also expanded export controls on shipments of tungsten, tellurium and other rare metal products that could be used for goods such as lithium batteries. American companies including clothing maker PVH and biotechnology player Illumina were added to a so-called unreliable entity list.

“The imposition of tariffs by the United States on Chinese exports to the United States is a serious violation of [World Trade Organization] rules,” a ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday. The representative blasted U.S. behavior as “of bad nature, typical of unilateralism and a form of trade protectionism.”

Separately, China’s market regulator said it was launching an investigation into Google over alleged violation of antitrust law

Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump are supposed to talk soon, so perhaps this will also go away. I saw two different elementary school performances of The Wizard of Oz last week and it reminded me how much I loved the meta line “People come and go so quickly here.” That’s basically how I feel about these tariffs.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

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The debate yesterday was between playing Bjork’s “It’s Oh So Quiet” and “Birthday” by pre-solo Bjork project The Sugarcubes. Why can’t we have both?

The Big Question

You go through the Ford/Lincoln lineup and tell me what should be:

  • ICE
  • ICE + HEV
  • BEV + EREV
  • BEV + HEV + ICE + EREV

or any other combination.

 

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3laine
3laine
1 day ago

I tend to believe the Volt counts, as well, though there was a mode in which the ICE could be used to power the wheels, so David doesn’t count it even if he does love it.

You are correct, IMO. EREV isn’t just another name for series hybrid, or even series PHEV, or we could just call it that.

EREV is a vehicle that is primarily an EV, doing the vast majority of driving on battery power, but for outlier uses, it can use it’s generator, which can be a serial hybrid or a parallel hybrid (like Volt). If you let someone borrow it and drive it around for a day or two, they might have no idea it has an engine at all.

It’s not JUST a series hybrid, because you can have series hybrids with tiny batteries like the Nissan Note e-power.

It’s not just a PHEV, either, because many PHEVs can’t do normal things like merge into traffic without using the gas engine.

It’s not even just a serial PHEV because we *could* build a serial PHEV with 10 miles of range, and it wouldn’t really be an EREV. It’s *normal* use case would be using gas frequently, not just occasionally, as a backup range extender.

CantoDrifto
CantoDrifto
2 days ago

“I tend to believe the Volt counts, as well, though there was a mode in which the ICE could be used to power the wheels”

That only happens in narrow conditions. The volt tends to hold the engine rpm steady and uses the motors to modulate torque demand.

Every time energy is transformed, there’s energy loss. If the condition is right for the engine to drive the wheel directly without going through the generator, battery, and motor, it would be inefficient not to.

Zeppelopod
Zeppelopod
1 day ago
Reply to  CantoDrifto

Spot on.

I think the weird “engine can never connect to the wheels” distinction isn’t terribly useful for determining PHEV vs EREV status.

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