Reverse-engineering Ford's E-Transit Custom electric van for Australia

Ford has deployed the so-called E-Transit Custom. Let’s decompile and reverse engineer the data so that you can decide if this electric van might be the right trade or general work vehicle for you...

Download the PODCAST for this report

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Ford has this plan for electric vehicles in Australia, which is basically: five of them by the end of 2024.

So they've got some time to roll it out, and in the meantime, we'll have to endure the endless marketing prick teasing.

As a result of Ford Australia’s recent press release, the E-Transit Custom is part of that plan, so it's going to be here between now and the end of 2023 - be still my beating heart. But, while you might be expecting it, I'm not going to trash talk them in this report.

There is actually a compelling case, at least seemingly, based on what we know so far from the information provided by Ford Australia. So we’re going to help you figure out if it’s a worthy work vehicle for you and your business.

You might also be considering a Hyundai Staria Load or Renault Trafic disguised at the Mitsubishi Express >>, but if you think the Toyota Hiace packs more space, think again >>

For some modes of use for this van, and EVs in general, courier-type vans of this nature make sense in many ways because clean air in the city is such an important topic. The number of people the pollution from internal combustion kills just ingesting or breathing it in, in our cities, is huge. EVs that do a lot of driving in the city are obviously representative of combustion that is not happening around everyone else in the city.

Certainly, you can make the case that EVs, if you fill them with electricity made from coal-burning, they are more like remote combustion vehicles, but at least millions of people are not directly breathing that exhaust in close proximity.

The first thing of note from their press release is the quote about ‘next generation battery tech’. It's actually the batteries out of the F-150 Lightning, so there is no next generation battery tech. It's all the current generation lithium-ion battery tech and terms like this are really an intelligence test or a scientific literacy test.

It’s also an insult to all of the diligent researchers who go into R&D facilities and universities to just try and tweak the existing tech so that we get a better balance of power delivery and endurance over time for batteries.

The periodic table of elements is known and electrolytes are all known and there really is no imminently deployable next generation battery tech on the horizon, despite what Elon Musk proclaims to his worshipers. Just like fusion power, new battery tech is always five to ten years away.

What they're saying about the E-Transit Custom, however, is 74 kilowatt hours of battery delivering up to 380 kilometers of range on the world harmonized light test procedure cycle. That's the new test cycle which has been in use since about 2017. It's a bit better than the old NEDC test, but it's still not perfectly aligned with the real world. So you just have to take that with a grain of salt. It also means you have to think about what that means for you if you use a van or a ute.

So, it offers 11 kilowatts DC which they say can fully recharge in seven hours and 12 minutes, which is basically overnight. So, if you're a tradie, you should be aware that you can only get 11 kilowatts out of three-phase power because the limit for single-phase is about 230 volts at 32 amps, which is about 7.4 kilowatts. If you take your E-Transit van home and it needs charging overnight quickly, you need a three-phase connection.

But there are so many more aspects to this vehicle that need to be discussed in detail, such as payload, logistics and how battery range will be affected depending on what you do and how much you carry.

For more details on how the Ford E-Transit might be the ideal workhorse for your business, watch the full report above.

You can also learn about the BIG problem at the core of electric utes here >> and find out what Australian politicians don’t understand about about towing with electric utes >>

If you want to understand battery technology better, check out the Hidden Dangers of Big Batteries: Thermal Runaway >> or you can understand How Batteries Work: Watt-hours Vs Amp-hours, power, energy and more

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