40% of Ford vehicles sold will be electric by 2030. An electric Bronco could well be part of that picture.
At least, that’s the company’s goal as it laid out its future electrification plans Wednesday. That figure is an abstract, though, as customers and enthusiasts alike care about the actual products that are going to comprise the Blue Oval’s EV share. The company’s North American Product Communications Manager, Mike Levine, put the word out on what we can expect over the coming years.
The main thrust? It looks like the four-door Bronco is a strong contender to spearhead Ford’s next-generation, dedicated electric vehicle platform:
“There’s a new all-wheel drive/rear-wheel drive flexible EV architecture on the way for cargo vehicles, pickups and rugged SUVs!”, he said on Twitter. By “pickups”, he also added that there will be another dedicated platform for full-size models like the F-150 Lightning. Right now, the first-gen model just revealed leans on the conventional F-150’s platform. The most evocative image, though, is the Bronco — and that outline is unmistakable with the spare tire hanging out back. What’s also clear, as Levine pointed out, is the common underpinnings that we’ll inevitably see between van, truck and SUV, even while the body may hide that common thread, at least to the casual observer.
The Explorer will go electric, naturally
A separate tweet also mentions the Explorer, one of Ford’s bestsellers alongside its F-Series trucks. “Yes, we will fully electrify Explorer as you might expect, given our plan to deliver 40% of our lineup as fully electric vehicles by 2030. We will continue playing to our strengths and electrify our icons in high-volume segments that we dominate today. We’ll share more details later.”
It’s a timely move on all fronts, as Ford faces intense competition to invest, develop and actually sell new electric products in the next few years. Tesla is, at the moment, still the dominant force in the EV space, but General Motors is also investing enormous sums of cash to bring dozens of EV models to market by the mid-2020s. Ford, for its part, is doubling down by investing $30 billion to compete in the electric vehicle field. Stellantis isn’t sitting around, either, as it’s already released a plug-in hybrid Jeep Wrangler 4xe and aims to launch a fully-electric model as well — a move which an electric Bronco would counter.
