Ford temporarily closes orders for Transit Custom PHEV in Europe

It seems that Ford has been getting more orders for the PHEV version of the Transit Custom than they expected and have temporarily stopped taking orders in Europe.

The company says that high demand is causing bottlenecks in production capacity. Orders were only just opened at the end of September this year. Since orders were opened for Europe in September, the Transit Custom Plug-in Hybrid has been offered in Germany – for example – at a basic list price of 57,114 euros (equivalent to around 63,100 US dollars).

Now it seems that Ford is currently not taking any new orders. A letter from Ford customer service to an affected customer was made available to our German colleagues at electrive.net. The letter states that “due to capacity bottlenecks […| the production of the Ford Transit Custom panel van Plug-in Hybrid has been stopped for the time being”. The letter said that the customer’s contract partner will inform them as soon as “availability is restored”.

According to a spokesperson for Ford-Werke GmbH, “production has by no means been stopped, just the possibility of ordering has been closed because we currently have enough orders available”. The spokesperson continued that it is quite possible that the order books will be reopened “in due course” but did not reveal when this might be the case.

The Transit Custom Plug-in Hybrid is a serial hybrid: The front wheels are always driven by a 92.9 kW electric motor. If the built-in lithium-ion battery with its 13.6 kWh energy content is empty (according to the WLTP standard after 56 kilometres), the 1.0-litre petrol engine switches on as a range extender. The PHEV can be recharged in 4.3 hours at a household socket, and in three hours at a more powerful wall box or public AC charging station. Ford gives a 160,000 kilometre or eight-year guarantee on the battery.

Like its conventionally powered sibling models, the Transit Custom PHEV has a capacity of six cubic metres. Ford puts the net payload at 1,100 kilos. The partly electric vehicles are available either as panel vans or station wagons – each with a short L1 wheelbase (2,933 mm) and a flat H1 roof. In addition to the Ford SYNC 3 entertainment and communication system, the vehicle also features the usual assistance systems and the FordPass Connect modem, which gives corporate customers access to fleet management systems.

From spring 2020 onwards, the Transit Custom PHEV is to be equipped with a geofencing module that will ensure that the van automatically switches to a purely electric drive in low emission zones and in individually definable areas. Ford is currently testing the geofencing module in a fleet trial in Cologne.

Sources: via emails