As an affordable EV
The Ford Fiesta went out of production last Friday, drawing the curtain after 47 years on one of the most successful compact cars ever. The Ford Puma indirectly takes over, although there may still be room for a direct successor.
With the necessary bombardment Ford said goodbye to the Fiesta, which is not exactly out of place after a career spanning almost 50 years. Ford managed to sell more than 22 million copies and it will be quite a long time before the Fiesta is no longer a familiar part of the street scene. So big shoes to fill and it seemed that Ford does not even want to try. Despite the higher body and (especially as an EV) higher price, the Ford Puma should ensure that Ford still has some grip on the compact car market. It now appears that Ford is considering putting another model under it, an electric car that continues more in the spirit of the Fiesta.
The Fiesta was above all an affordable choice in a sober jacket and the danger is that the Puma deviates too much from that and Ford loses customers. In conversation with Automotive News Ford’s European CEO Martin Sander lets go that Ford is considering a compact and more affordable EV from Ford on Volkswagen’s MEB basis. Volkswagen is working on triplets (VW, Skoda and Cupra) that should make electric driving accessible to more people thanks to a starting price of less than €25,000. The Volkswagen ID2 will probably be an electric equivalent of the Polo, possibly even in a fairly traditional hatchback jacket. A Ford version of that would of course fit into the Fiesta bloodline. According to Sander, there is a ‘very constructive and positive cooperation with Volkswagen’ and ‘opportunities are being looked at to take that to the next level’.
Volkswagen ID2 (Illustration Larson)
For the time being, Sander does not want to say more than that the arrival of such a compact and more affordable EV ‘cannot be ruled out’. In the car world, that does not mean that it is already certain. It is also highly questionable whether Ford would stick the Fiesta name on that new model. It could of course be a handy move, but at the same time Ford has said goodbye to the Fiesta so firmly that it is somewhat strange if Ford simply dusts off that name a few years later.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl