Ford Australia to stick with long-game approach to electrification

Situation normal. That’s Ford Australia’s immediate position under the tenure of new boss Kay Hart, who despite extensive history in Ford’s US electric vehicle division has no plan to deviate from the local importer’s current strategy.

Kiwi-born Hart assumed the mantle from Graeme Whickman as Ford’s Australian boss earlier this month. She arrives directly from Ford’s future-focused Team Edison division charged with creating Ford’s next wave of new mobility solutions.

Despite her experience with electrification and mobility solutions, Hart conceded that Ford was at the same mercy as every other car-maker in Australia: a lack of electric vehicle infrastructure.

“I think the future of electrification is a big one for Ford, particularly with our announcements at the beginning of the year,” she said.

“It’s not only battery but hybrid and plug-in hybrid; that range of vehicles that we’re looking at is all about when the market’s ready – and that includes Australia and New Zealand. When the market’s ready, I’m confident we will have the vehicles for that.

“We’re definitely looking and we’re forecasting what we can, but we won’t make a move until the market is ready.”

Hart pointed to the affordability of electric vehicles as one of the key hurdles to their take-up. She said affordability could be linked back to infrastructure, or a lack thereof in Australia.

“From an electrification standpoint, the key is more around the infrastructure to support. That’s been the focus to take on the electrification: infrastructure in terms of public charging but also home charging,” she said.

Looking back on her last posting in the US market, Hart hoped she could apply some of her teachings to the new Ford Australia role.

“There are a lot of similarities between the US and Australia, the biggest difference is just market readiness,” she said.

“California has a lot of emphasis on electrification, from an infrastructure standpoint they’re a step above other states in the US. Understanding how they have done it, how they’ve got different vehicles to market and how other companies have gone to market, are definite learnings.

“Electrification comes in many forms and I would say we would apply it to where our strengths are from a Ford standpoint. So the announcements we’ve had in terms of plug-in, hybrid or battery, are around SUVs, that’s where our focus has been as well as sedans in the US.”

Ford Australia’s continued resistance to electrified vehicles is an about-face on its December 2014 commitment to release its first hybrid model “within a few years”.

“I’m delighted to announce that we will introduce hybrid technology to Australia and New Zealand within the next few years,” said Ford Asia Pacific product development chief Trevor Worthington at the Ford Go Further 2020 event in Melbourne in December 2014.

“Ford is the second highest seller of hybrids globally, so we’re bringing our customers the benefits of our global experience in this field,” he said at the time.

“Ford’s hybrid technology offers a compelling combination of performance, efficiency and affordability. We look forward to providing more specifics, closer to the time.”

As we reported in February 2015, Ford Australia previously had plans to introduce a hybrid version of the latest Mondeo within 18 months of its April 2015 launch.

It’s unclear exactly why Ford Australia back-flipped on its plan to introduce the Mondeo hybrid, which would have been based on the European version and related to Ford’s North American Mondeo Hybrid, and positioned as a direct rival to the Toyota Camry Hybrid.

However, the long-term future of the Mondeo itself — beyond a midlife facelift due to debut later this year and arrive Down Under later next year — remains under a cloud following Ford USA’s decision to axe the Fusion.

Currently in the US, Ford sells hybrid versions of the Fusion and C-Max, and all-electric versions of the Fusion and Focus (pictured).