New Ford Ranger ready to adopt plug-in hybrid, electric power

The 2023 Ford Ranger is due to arrive in Australian showrooms from June this year with petrol and diesel engines – but electrified models may not be far behind.

A plug-in hybrid petrol version of the new Ford Ranger has been spotted testing in Europe – where it is expected to launch in that guise first.

Drive understands the plug-in petrol-electric version of the Ford Ranger may follow in Australia about 12 months after the arrival of the regular line-up – and over the next 10 years there could be a fully-electric variant, if customers demand it.

The chief engineer for the Ford Ranger globally, Ian Foston, told Drive during a media preview this week: 

“We can’t confirm where we are heading, but we are looking at all the technology we are deploying at Ford (to be applied to the new Ranger).

“We’ve got a bandwidth of electrification hardware that enables us to go anywhere from a 24-volt mild hybrid all the way through to a full electric version.

“With Ranger and the T6 platform (the codename given to vehicles based off the Ranger chassis) we’re looking at that and saying, at a point in time, ‘what would the customer want?' And then we can provide that energy option to them.”

Mr Foston said the new Ford Ranger has the “capability for full electrification (but) we just need to work out along its lifecycle journey when and if we’re going to deploy those different types of electrification.”

Mr Foston said a decision was yet to be made whether this generation Ford Ranger would adopt a fully-electric option some time over the next 10 years or so, given the majority of sales in 180 countries are in developing regions where petrol and diesel are still favoured.

“It’s true to say we don’t know everything now … all we can do is what we have done which is to ‘future proof’ the platform to enable the technology to be applied as we go along,” said Mr Foston. 

“We’re doing a lot of research with customers, to find out what their acceptance is of different types of electrification, and we will respond to that demand from customers.”