Ford USA To Draw on European Lineup for Improved Fuel-Efficiency, Profitability
bunch of stuff on cars, then... transit connect & transit
Transit Connect: Ford will import the 2010 Transit Connect, a small delivery van sold in Europe. The FWD van is assembled in Turkey on a reinforced version of C1, the European Ford Focus platform.
Ford is expected to build the Transit Connect in North America for the 2013 model year. Assembly location likely will be in Louisville. With higher gasoline prices, Ford anticipates demand for a four-cylinder, fuel-efficient van that can be used for small-item delivery or by some tradespeople.
Econoline, Transit: After decades of flirting with the idea, Ford plans to move to a single global full-size van platform. The van, code-named V363, will be based on the Transit van now sold in Europe. The Transit is available in a variety of sizes and configurations, including FWD and RWD.
The North American Transit is expected to go into production for the 2012 model year at Ford's assembly plant in Avon Lake, Ohio, which now produces the E-Series van. The E-Series, also called the Econoline, is expected to be discontinued when U.S. production of the Transit begins.
When I saw the headline this morning that Ford was planning to start producing some of their smaller, fuel efficient European models here in the US, I had my fingers crosses that the Transit would be one of them.
2012 eh? Why so long?!?! We need it as an option for next year or at most 2010!!
Now if they would only start moving Americans away from the automatic transmission fixation!!
It takes time to replan business and retool plants. These are enormous enterprises - it takes alot of time and dollars to do this. If this was loaded into their product plans over the last 5-10 years, it might have been done within the yearly model change - but Detroit, and alot of others, really didn't see the sea-change of buying preferences coming - so now they are reacting. Even the lauded Toyota was caught off-guard, and is making enormous changes to rebalance their future products.
Ford has done excellent business selling E-series vans, with only modest changes, year after year. It wouldn't be easy to move away from that. Ford deserves alot of credit for making the painful, but necessary (IMHO) changes they are making.
I don't think the existing Euro diesels meet US emissions standards. They also need to put contracts in place for supply of parts. As you say, it's an existing design - but if they source the parts in Europe, they may not be able to make any money. They will also need to spin-up support (parts, training, etc) for the US dealers. They will probably have engines and trannys not currently offered in the US.
I wish it was otherwise. And I wish they had prepared for this and started sooner - but they didn't.
I just emailed a fellow in England who bought a used Transit and did his own conversion. I asked him what kind of millage he was getting and this was his reply:
The engine is a 2.5 Duratorque turbo deisel engine and getting on average 35 MPG if you keep it at around 90 KPH otherwise it will drastically reduce.
I have also meet and talked with people from the Netherlands and they drove cars with diesel engines that got 50 MPG.
I wish the Sprinter I just bought got 35 MPG instead of the 21-23 MPG.
I don't think that 2.5L would meet current emissions rules in the U.S. And I didn't think the current 6cyl Sprinters got 21-23mpg either, but reports seem to be varied.
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