Ford E-Transit 2023 review

Given that you’re paying for expensive batteries and some relatively new tech, it’s no surprise to find that nearly every EV is more expensive than its rough ICE-powered equivalent. Often that difference is as much as 100 per cent more expensive…

But it pays to remember that some of the cost in an EV amounts to front-loading your running costs for the years to come, and when you look at it holistically, the sticker shock is relieved to a certain extent. Still, you get the feeling government fleets and corporate fleets trying to hit a green target are vastly more likely to be E-Transit buyers than self-employed tradies and delivery drivers.

The E-Transit wears 16-inch steel wheels.

And the bottom line? The cheapest way into an E-Transit is the mid-height roof model which kicks things off at $104,990 before on-road costs. The high-roof version adds another $1500 and there are options including a second sliding side door at $1000, a bucket seat for the passenger (rather than the standard bench) at $150, SVO paint at $1400 and prestige paint at $700. For our money, we’d be ticking the box for the extra side door and the higher roofline if you need it. Reducing the passenger capacity from three to two for an extra $150 just sounds like an own goal. Oh, and you’ll need to find a Ford dealer that’s authorised to sell Ford electric models.

Both mid and high-roof Transits are powered by the same driveline and the difference – literally – is the height of the roofline.

Inside is a 12.0-inch touchscreen.

Ford made a big deal of the connectivity of the E-Transit at the vehicle’s launch and, when you think about it, being connected to the world that needs its deliveries, and now, it makes a bit of sense that the van gets the full SYNC4 package accessible via a 12.0-inch touchscreen.

There’s also a choice of drive modes in the E-Transit which cover Eco mode for maximum range, Normal mode for more performance and Slippery mode which seems tailor-made for European markets where ice and snow are part of life.

The current Transit line-up has been roundly praised for its practicality and operator-focussed layout, and none of that has changed with the switch from diesel to electrons. In fact, everywhere you look, there’s evidence of a design team that understands what the end user of a vehicle like this requires.

That starts in the cabin which is a three-seat layout with decent room in the centre position partly due to the rotary-dial gear selector on the dashboard rather than sprouting from the floor. The driver’s seat also has a fold-down armrest which can make a big difference over the course of an eight-hour shift. The seats are trimmed in a tough-looking material that is also breathable. That hard-wearing theme is carried into the floor which is vinyl-covered rather than carpet and almost makes the Transit a hose-out proposition.

The current Transit line-up has been roundly praised for its practicality and operator-focussed layout.

Storage is also well looked after with huge overhead shelves the full width of the cabin and an impressive array of cubby holes across the top of the dashboard perfectly designed for clip-boards, order books and whatever else. They also incorporate charging points and USB ports. Big door bins also feature on each side with a bottle-holder built in to them.

The cargo area is cut off from the cabin by a fixed barrier with just a small window to peep through to the load area. Some operators favour a walk-through cabin, but in reality, the fixed cargo barrier makes for a safer vehicle in a shunt. The Transit loses a couple of marks for having just a single sliding side door when some of its competition have doors on both sides, but twin doors are an option. And the Transit gains those points back when you open the rear barn doors. By flipping a small catch, these rear doors can both be opened through 270 degrees to fold flat against the van’s sides, making fork-lift loading possible.

The Transit's rear doors can be opened 270 degrees.

The E-Transit will also easily take a standard pallet between the wheel arches, and there are 10 tie-down points on the floor, a fully lined cargo bay, an overhead tailgate light and four cargo area lights. The only potential problem is the cargo-bay floor covering which is a hard, shiny plastic that felt relatively slippery in the dry and could be very slick with a bit of water on it.

Because Ford has been able to house all the batteries under the floor, both the mid and high-roof E-Transit variants can carry the same amount of bulk as their ICE-powered counterparts. That is; 11 cubic-metres in the mid-roof and 12.4 cubic-metres in the high-roof. Payloads are 1611kg and 1566kg respectively and both versions have a 4.25-tonne Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) so they can be driven on a normal car license. This similarity in packaging and cargo-area shape also means that a fleet switching from ICE-powered Transits to the E-Transit should be able to re-use load-bay fittings specific to its requirements.

The E-Transit has 11-12.4 cubic-metres of space.

Another nice touch is that the E-Transit is its own 240-volt power supply, meaning workshop tools can be operated on site without the need for a stand-alone generator.

A full-sized spare tyre is housed under what is the bonnet of a conventional Transit.

But here’s the bad news: Ford doesn’t warrant the vehicle if you’ve used it to tow anything. There’s no tow-bar kit, no towing limit and no wiring at the rear of the vehicle for a trailer plug. The E-Transit simply can’t be used for towing. Okay? To be fair, most delivery vans never tow anything, but more than the odd van-driving tradie tows a small trailer to and from job sites, so for them, the E-Transit is off limits. The Ford van is also limited to a top speed of 130km/h. Which shouldn’t bother anyone.

Interestingly, given modern packaging practices, the Transit remains a rear-wheel-drive vehicle. That means its single electric motor is located between the rear wheels with the batteries stashed under the floor. Again, there’s been some clever figuring done here, because even with the underfloor area full of those batteries, the load area of the E-Transit remains precisely the same as conventionally powered Transits with the same body.

Power for the electric van is 198kW and 430Nm, making the E-Transit the most powerful version of the van available.

The E-Transit has a 307km range.

There’s a single-speed transmission and as well as three drive modes (Eco, Normal and Slippery) there’s an `L’ button that, when pressed, increases the braking regeneration, giving the Transit a one-pedal mode.

The rear suspension of the Transit is now independent with a semi-trailing arm layout which improves both ride quality and traction without sacrificing load-carrying ability.

The E-Transit has a 68kW battery which is enough to give it a 307km range based on the European WLTP test-drive cycle. The good news is the EVs achieve their best range in stop-start and urban traffic; exactly how the average E-Transit will operate.

In the real world, we’d expect the E-Transit to use between 20 and 23kW per 100km, and even though Ford assured us that aerodynamics was the big player in determining efficiency, experience suggests that accelerating the Transit’s not inconsiderable mass and how much you’re carrying will also play a big part in how far you go between charges.

The Transit can be charged from 15 per cent to 80 per cent in 34 minutes.

Ford has fitted the vehicle with an on-board AC charger which operates at 11.3kW (on three-phase power and nearer to seven Watts on a normal 10-amp plug) and can completely charge the van’s battery in eight hours. If you have access to a DC fast charger of sufficient capacity, the Transit will accept a charge of 115kW which will take the battery from 15 per cent to 80 per cent charged in a claimed 34 minutes.

This number is possibly less critical in a delivery van than it is to other types of EVs, purely because the range will rarely be exceeded in a single day’s work and the vehicle is most likely to be recharged overnight back at the depot. In fact, Ford reckons the 307km figure is two-and-a-half times the average daily mileage of the average delivery van. In Europe, maybe…

Driver aids are the headline news here. The E-Transit is fitted with autonomous emergency braking that operates above (not just below) 80km/h. There’s also adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring and blind-spot assist. That works in conjunction with the lane-keeping assistance and lane-departure warning and there’s also hill launch assist. Crucially for a vehicle such as this, there are rear parking sensors and a rear camera that uses its high mounting point to offer a great perspective view of the rear surroundings.