Walmart orders 1,100 Ford E-Transit vans
US retailer Walmart has ordered 1,100 units of the E-Transit from Ford. In total, Ford says it already has 300 customers for the electric van in the USA, who have placed orders for more than 10,000 units.
According to Ford, the 300 customers include “businesses of all sizes” – from one-person operations to municipalities like the city of Orlando to Walmart. As for Walmart, the retailer expects Ford to deliver 1,100 E-Transit vans. However, the order follows a bigger purchase when Walmart reserved 5,000 units from Brightdrop, a GM brand.
The news about Walmart was but one part of a press release concerning Ford Pro. The business-facing unit introduces Ford Pro Intelligence, a cloud-based platform with digital services for commercial fleet operations.
For Ford Pro, their new platform integrates both gas and electric vehicles. “More data, more uptime, more productivity, smart charging and much less hassle,” said Jim Farley, the Ford CEO.
There were, however, more info and data on actual market uptake in the press release since Ford launched the E-Transit in the US last year and sold 10,000 units since.
The Ford E-Transit comes in eight configurations, including three roof heights and three lengths. However, the high-roof, extended wheelbase configuration, also referred to as the “jumbo” model, was the most popular. It represents a third of all orders, including all 1,100 ordered by Walmart, so Ford. The van has the most interior capacity and allows tall persons to stand upright.
19 per cent of the orders comprise the low-roof E-Transit, which was “especially popular with customers in the telecommunications industry where workers take their vans home at night because it can fit in many residential garages,” Ford explained.
This year, the E-Transit is one of two all-electric work vehicles available from Ford Pro. The F-150 Lightning Pro pick-up truck arrives this spring in North America. The E-Transit van is also slated to launch in Europe this quarter, where customer trials were underway since summer 2021. Order books are now open on the continent, and Ford set the market launch in May.
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