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Ford’s Transit Connect is much more than just a van
When is a van not a van? When it’s an affordable Ford family-carrier targeting Baby Boomers with misty-eyed memories of old nameplates. The American automaker has resurrected the Ford Transit Connect Wagon brand for a whole new seven-seater, and it looks set to challenge two of the industry’s current obsessions: Millennials and SUVs.
Indeed, unlike the industry’s usual obsession with Millennial drivers, this one is for the 50+ bracket. Nonetheless, even with that targeting in Ford’s message, the 2023 Transit Connect Wagon could well find favor among younger families too. Based, as the name suggests, on the Ford Transit van, there’ll be not only space for hobbies, kids, or grandkids inside, but a range of new engines at the front.
That includes a brand new 1.5-liter EcoBlue diesel, which Ford says should be good for 30 mpg on the EPA’s highway run. Alternatively, there’s a new 2.0-liter four-cylinder gas engine with direct injection. That has Auto Start-Stop as standard, and like the diesel will be paired with a new 8-speed automatic transmission.
Ford isn’t saying quite how much either variant will cost at this point, but it is talking up the affordability in general. According to the automaker, it expects the 2023 Transit Connect to be one of the most affordable seven-passenger vehicles on the market in the US when it arrives at dealerships. That offers up an unusual challenge to what has been one of the most enduring segments of the past few years.
While sales of sedans and other body types have stumbled, SUVs and crossovers have proved more than popular among new car buyers. Typically, owners praise the flexibility of their design and cargo capacity, along with the higher-than-average seating. It’s a skew that automakers have been happy to accommodate, too, with the mass-market names rolling out numerous sizes of model from tiny crossovers through to vast seven or eight seaters.
Meanwhile, companies more commonly associated with luxury and sports cars have added SUVs to their ranges too, often finding the new, larger models quickly come to eclipse sales of their traditional cars. Jaguar, for example, bucked its historic trend with the F-PACE SUV in 2023, only to see the luxury crossover become the best-seller in its line-up. The new 2023 Jaguar E-PACE we drove recently is expected to quickly enter the top three of the automaker’s best-sellers, though some industry experts predict it could well overtake the F-PACE entirely and become the most popular of Jaguar’s cars.
Nonetheless while crossovers and SUVs have found popularity, they’ve also generally settled on premium pricing. That’s both the case in the dealership, where the bigger cars tend to be more expensive than sedans and hatchbacks, and at the pump. The larger, heavier vehicles typically prove more thirsty, even if they’re not carrying the full complement of which they’re capable.
Ford’s strategy with the 2023 Transit Connect, therefore, is a cunning one. Finding a seven-seater that isn’t a huge minivan or an SUV in the US is tough, given the country’s ongoing antipathy toward wagons in general. Similarly, finding an affordable way to transport that many people is also tough. While SUV and crossover sales are unlikely to go anywhere, at least not any time soon, there’s almost certain to be a market out there among drivers needing seats but not wanting to cough up the levels of cash a sizable truck would demand.
If the Transit Connect has ambitions in redirecting SUV sales, it also bucks the trend in terms of audience. Ford is explicitly targeting a demographic that, for the most part, automakers have been happy to let simmer unchallenged for some time now. The market-wide fear that younger drivers will give up on car ownership altogether has arguably led car-makers to neglect their more willing customers.
While coaxing Millennials out of ride-sharing and off public transit might be a perennial focus for the auto industry right now, in reality there’s still plenty of hay to be made from Baby Boomers. The 50+ demographic is – at 111 million people in the US – still bigger than both the Millennial and Gen X categories, at least when compared individually. Meanwhile, research by AARP suggests that, far from the lease reluctance of their younger counterparts, one in three Boomers is planning to pick up a new car within the next three years.
Many of the messages that would once have been attached to crossovers and SUVs, about flexibility, cargo capacity, and practicality, are now being attached to the new Transit Connect. And, while Ford may not come out and say it explicitly, downsizing from larger, gas-guzzling vehicles to something more frugal and easy to park is a known priority among older demographics.
What seems on the face of it to be a simple van conversion, therefore, arguably has far more importance for the state of the industry today. SUV and crossover sales continue to flourish, but the margins they command mean automakers like Ford are arguably bypassing buyers on a tighter budget. Those customers are instead likely to head into the used marketplace, something all of the car companies are keen to curtail as investors watch closely at new car sales. The 2023 Ford Transit Connect may look like a compact van, but it’s carrying a whole lot more weight than you might first expect.
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Ford Leapfrogs Gm To Ink Rivian Deal: All
Ford leapfrogs GM to ink Rivian deal: All-new electric vehicle confirmed
Ford has inked a deal with electric vehicle startup Rivian, investing $500m into the new automaker, and revealing plans to build an all-new vehicle using Rivian’s platform. The deal sees Ford join other high-profile investors like Amazon in backing the EV-maker, which came out of stealth mode in late 2023 with not one but two vehicles.
The first was the Rivian R1T, an all-electric pickup truck. That was swiftly followed by the Rivian R1S, a seven seat, three-row SUV. Specifications include a maximum range of over 400 miles, the automaker promised.
Both vehicles use the same underlying architecture, Rivian’s so-called skateboard platform. This packages together the motors, batteries, and other hardware and electronics, onto which the body of the vehicle is mounted. It’s a clever strategy, leaving plenty of space both in the cabin and for unusual storage areas, like the R1T’s truck-spanning cargo area just behind the cab.
It also, however, gives Rivian the flexibility to provide its architecture to other automakers. Back when the company broke cover, the talk was of how niche players could bypass the lengthy and expensive process to EV certification and regulatory approval by instead adopting its skateboard platform. However now it’s big names in the auto industry who are getting involved.
Ford is one such example. “As we continue in our transformation of Ford with new forms of intelligent vehicles and propulsion, this partnership with Rivian brings a fresh approach to both,” Jim Hackett, Ford president and CEO, said of the deal. “At the same time, we believe Rivian can benefit from Ford’s industrial expertise and resources.”
First off, Ford will make a $500 million minority investment into Rivian, and Joe Hinrichs – who, as of May 1, will be president of Automotive at Ford – will join Rivian’s board of directors. In the meantime, Ford will develop an all-new vehicle, using the Rivian platform.
This will be in addition to, rather than replacing, Ford’s previously-announced EVs. They include a Mustang-inspired crossover, which the automaker has said should debut in 2023, and an electric F-150 pickup truck. Rivian will remain an independent company, though get to dip into Ford’s expertise in mass-manufacturing.
It’s unclear at this stage what vehicle Ford might build using Rivian’s platform or, indeed, what nameplate it might launch on. Although the startup opted for two of the most popular categories when it developed a pickup truck and a three-row SUV, the underlying skateboard architecture isn’t solely intended for larger vehicles. By adjusting the size of the battery pack, and the number of motors, for instance, Rivian could just as well create a smaller, front-wheel drive city car, or a midsize rear-wheel drive crossover.
One strong possibility, though, is that Lincoln could benefit from this new deal. Ford’s premium nameplate has done well in recent years with a number of highly-praised SUVs, starting with the new Navigator. However while there is a hybrid in Lincoln’s range, it’s the MKZ sedan: there are no electric Lincoln SUVs at present. Rivian’s technology could well help the automaker correct that omission.
Ford hasn’t been the only automaker reportedly sniffing around Rivian for a potential deal. Around the same time as Amazon leading an investment round into the new automaker earlier this year, it was reported that General Motors – parent company of Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, and other brands – was also exploring the idea. However talks stalled, according to insider reports, earlier this month.
Ford Might Just Move The Driver, Not Go Driverless
Ford might just move the driver, not go driverless
Unfortunately there’s not a 600+ horsepower Ford GT at the other end of the wireless connection. Instead, Ford’s engineers and their partners at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta outfitted a somewhat less powerful golf cart with the necessary kit.
In Palo Alto, you sit at a triple monitor rig with the Logitech wheel and pedals, and see what’s in front of the golf cart through streaming video cameras. Exactly how much of the periphery is visible is customizable; initially, Ford showed us a relatively broad view spread across all three displays, but you can cut that down to a single camera if you don’t have the screen real-estate for it.
After that, it’s a matter of using a single pedal to control the accelerator, and steering around the lot. Ford overlays some green and red lines to indicate the width of the cart and where the current steering angle should take it, but in this current implementation the sensor load is low. There’s a local kill-switch, in case you decide to go on a remote rampage and crush cones, but none of the sensors Ford says it would expect to fit were the product commercialized.
Rather than send cars like the Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle that Ford is loaning to Stanford out onto the streets every time there’s a new sign-identification build to put through its paces, Ford can set the autonomous leaning algorithms loose into a virtual road system.
That also allows testing density to be far higher: you can pepper the streets with stop signs and speed warnings, for instance, at a far greater density than you’d ever encounter in the real world, while those signs can also be rotated, partially obscured with paint or snow, or have their sizes and shapes changed.
“The reason we’re using game engines is because games are getting very realistic now,” Ford computer vision engineer Arthur Alaniz explained to me. Currently, the team is experimenting with various different underlying engines – they declined to name specifics – hunting for the most efficient one. The AI spots signs and flags them with different colored boxes and circles, reading things like speed limits or lane guidance.
It’s technologies like these which leaves Ford confident that – contrary to what map specialists like Nokia HERE might suggest - you don’t need to have a perfect understanding of every territory before you can set a self-driving car loose in it. Instead, Alaniz argued, it’s just a case of having a different, and perhaps more cautious algorithm in command, reacting to the topography and signage in real-time.
Remotely piloting a car rather than leaving it entirely to a robot driver may not be as dramatic, but it could be market ready a whole lot sooner. Ford hasn’t committed to actually launching it yet, but the assumption is that the legal hurdles holding back fully-autonomous vehicles could be less strenuous to pass if there’s still a human in command, even if they’re not physically present.
The upshot might be car sharing schemes where vehicles could be moved around an urban environment to better suit driver demand, or parking garages where virtual valets could squeeze cars into spaces without having to leave room for doors to be opened.
Is it practical? “As cars get more electrified, it gets easier and easier to do this in the real world,” Tinskey told me, though the limits of the off-the-shelf technology Ford is relying upon are being felt. Already, the team has encountered a noticeable increase in latency when students at the Georgia Institute of Technology get out of class, bandwidth on the 4G network Ford is relying upon becoming narrower.
“I wouldn’t say it’s ready for prime time,” Tinskey concludes, “but it’s giving us some interesting results.”
Curious what else Ford is working on beside self-driving cars? We went behind-the-scenes
Ford’S Transit Connect Is Much More Than Just A Van
Ford’s Transit Connect is much more than just a van
When is a van not a van? When it’s an affordable Ford family-carrier targeting Baby Boomers with misty-eyed memories of old nameplates. The American automaker has resurrected the Ford Transit Connect Wagon brand for a whole new seven-seater, and it looks set to challenge two of the industry’s current obsessions: Millennials and SUVs.
Indeed, unlike the industry’s usual obsession with Millennial drivers, this one is for the 50+ bracket. Nonetheless, even with that targeting in Ford’s message, the 2023 Transit Connect Wagon could well find favor among younger families too. Based, as the name suggests, on the Ford Transit van, there’ll be not only space for hobbies, kids, or grandkids inside, but a range of new engines at the front.
That includes a brand new 1.5-liter EcoBlue diesel, which Ford says should be good for 30 mpg on the EPA’s highway run. Alternatively, there’s a new 2.0-liter four-cylinder gas engine with direct injection. That has Auto Start-Stop as standard, and like the diesel will be paired with a new 8-speed automatic transmission.
Ford isn’t saying quite how much either variant will cost at this point, but it is talking up the affordability in general. According to the automaker, it expects the 2023 Transit Connect to be one of the most affordable seven-passenger vehicles on the market in the US when it arrives at dealerships. That offers up an unusual challenge to what has been one of the most enduring segments of the past few years.
While sales of sedans and other body types have stumbled, SUVs and crossovers have proved more than popular among new car buyers. Typically, owners praise the flexibility of their design and cargo capacity, along with the higher-than-average seating. It’s a skew that automakers have been happy to accommodate, too, with the mass-market names rolling out numerous sizes of model from tiny crossovers through to vast seven or eight seaters.
Meanwhile, companies more commonly associated with luxury and sports cars have added SUVs to their ranges too, often finding the new, larger models quickly come to eclipse sales of their traditional cars. Jaguar, for example, bucked its historic trend with the F-PACE SUV in 2023, only to see the luxury crossover become the best-seller in its line-up. The new 2023 Jaguar E-PACE we drove recently is expected to quickly enter the top three of the automaker’s best-sellers, though some industry experts predict it could well overtake the F-PACE entirely and become the most popular of Jaguar’s cars.
Nonetheless while crossovers and SUVs have found popularity, they’ve also generally settled on premium pricing. That’s both the case in the dealership, where the bigger cars tend to be more expensive than sedans and hatchbacks, and at the pump. The larger, heavier vehicles typically prove more thirsty, even if they’re not carrying the full complement of which they’re capable.
Ford’s strategy with the 2023 Transit Connect, therefore, is a cunning one. Finding a seven-seater that isn’t a huge minivan or an SUV in the US is tough, given the country’s ongoing antipathy toward wagons in general. Similarly, finding an affordable way to transport that many people is also tough. While SUV and crossover sales are unlikely to go anywhere, at least not any time soon, there’s almost certain to be a market out there among drivers needing seats but not wanting to cough up the levels of cash a sizable truck would demand.
If the Transit Connect has ambitions in redirecting SUV sales, it also bucks the trend in terms of audience. Ford is explicitly targeting a demographic that, for the most part, automakers have been happy to let simmer unchallenged for some time now. The market-wide fear that younger drivers will give up on car ownership altogether has arguably led car-makers to neglect their more willing customers.
While coaxing Millennials out of ride-sharing and off public transit might be a perennial focus for the auto industry right now, in reality there’s still plenty of hay to be made from Baby Boomers. The 50+ demographic is – at 111 million people in the US – still bigger than both the Millennial and Gen X categories, at least when compared individually. Meanwhile, research by AARP suggests that, far from the lease reluctance of their younger counterparts, one in three Boomers is planning to pick up a new car within the next three years.
Many of the messages that would once have been attached to crossovers and SUVs, about flexibility, cargo capacity, and practicality, are now being attached to the new Transit Connect. And, while Ford may not come out and say it explicitly, downsizing from larger, gas-guzzling vehicles to something more frugal and easy to park is a known priority among older demographics.
What seems on the face of it to be a simple van conversion, therefore, arguably has far more importance for the state of the industry today. SUV and crossover sales continue to flourish, but the margins they command mean automakers like Ford are arguably bypassing buyers on a tighter budget. Those customers are instead likely to head into the used marketplace, something all of the car companies are keen to curtail as investors watch closely at new car sales. The 2023 Ford Transit Connect may look like a compact van, but it’s carrying a whole lot more weight than you might first expect.
Ford’S Transit Connect Is Much More Than Just A Van
Ford’s Transit Connect is much more than just a van
When is a van not a van? When it’s an affordable Ford family-carrier targeting Baby Boomers with misty-eyed memories of old nameplates. The American automaker has resurrected the Ford Transit Connect Wagon brand for a whole new seven-seater, and it looks set to challenge two of the industry’s current obsessions: Millennials and SUVs.
Indeed, unlike the industry’s usual obsession with Millennial drivers, this one is for the 50+ bracket. Nonetheless, even with that targeting in Ford’s message, the 2023 Transit Connect Wagon could well find favor among younger families too. Based, as the name suggests, on the Ford Transit van, there’ll be not only space for hobbies, kids, or grandkids inside, but a range of new engines at the front.
That includes a brand new 1.5-liter EcoBlue diesel, which Ford says should be good for 30 mpg on the EPA’s highway run. Alternatively, there’s a new 2.0-liter four-cylinder gas engine with direct injection. That has Auto Start-Stop as standard, and like the diesel will be paired with a new 8-speed automatic transmission.
Ford isn’t saying quite how much either variant will cost at this point, but it is talking up the affordability in general. According to the automaker, it expects the 2023 Transit Connect to be one of the most affordable seven-passenger vehicles on the market in the US when it arrives at dealerships. That offers up an unusual challenge to what has been one of the most enduring segments of the past few years.
While sales of sedans and other body types have stumbled, SUVs and crossovers have proved more than popular among new car buyers. Typically, owners praise the flexibility of their design and cargo capacity, along with the higher-than-average seating. It’s a skew that automakers have been happy to accommodate, too, with the mass-market names rolling out numerous sizes of model from tiny crossovers through to vast seven or eight seaters.
Meanwhile, companies more commonly associated with luxury and sports cars have added SUVs to their ranges too, often finding the new, larger models quickly come to eclipse sales of their traditional cars. Jaguar, for example, bucked its historic trend with the F-PACE SUV in 2023, only to see the luxury crossover become the best-seller in its line-up. The new 2023 Jaguar E-PACE we drove recently is expected to quickly enter the top three of the automaker’s best-sellers, though some industry experts predict it could well overtake the F-PACE entirely and become the most popular of Jaguar’s cars.
Nonetheless while crossovers and SUVs have found popularity, they’ve also generally settled on premium pricing. That’s both the case in the dealership, where the bigger cars tend to be more expensive than sedans and hatchbacks, and at the pump. The larger, heavier vehicles typically prove more thirsty, even if they’re not carrying the full complement of which they’re capable.
Ford’s strategy with the 2023 Transit Connect, therefore, is a cunning one. Finding a seven-seater that isn’t a huge minivan or an SUV in the US is tough, given the country’s ongoing antipathy toward wagons in general. Similarly, finding an affordable way to transport that many people is also tough. While SUV and crossover sales are unlikely to go anywhere, at least not any time soon, there’s almost certain to be a market out there among drivers needing seats but not wanting to cough up the levels of cash a sizable truck would demand.
If the Transit Connect has ambitions in redirecting SUV sales, it also bucks the trend in terms of audience. Ford is explicitly targeting a demographic that, for the most part, automakers have been happy to let simmer unchallenged for some time now. The market-wide fear that younger drivers will give up on car ownership altogether has arguably led car-makers to neglect their more willing customers.
While coaxing Millennials out of ride-sharing and off public transit might be a perennial focus for the auto industry right now, in reality there’s still plenty of hay to be made from Baby Boomers. The 50+ demographic is – at 111 million people in the US – still bigger than both the Millennial and Gen X categories, at least when compared individually. Meanwhile, research by AARP suggests that, far from the lease reluctance of their younger counterparts, one in three Boomers is planning to pick up a new car within the next three years.
Many of the messages that would once have been attached to crossovers and SUVs, about flexibility, cargo capacity, and practicality, are now being attached to the new Transit Connect. And, while Ford may not come out and say it explicitly, downsizing from larger, gas-guzzling vehicles to something more frugal and easy to park is a known priority among older demographics.
What seems on the face of it to be a simple van conversion, therefore, arguably has far more importance for the state of the industry today. SUV and crossover sales continue to flourish, but the margins they command mean automakers like Ford are arguably bypassing buyers on a tighter budget. Those customers are instead likely to head into the used marketplace, something all of the car companies are keen to curtail as investors watch closely at new car sales. The 2023 Ford Transit Connect may look like a compact van, but it’s carrying a whole lot more weight than you might first expect.
Ford’S Transit Connect Is Much More Than Just A Van
Ford’s Transit Connect is much more than just a van
When is a van not a van? When it’s an affordable Ford family-carrier targeting Baby Boomers with misty-eyed memories of old nameplates. The American automaker has resurrected the Ford Transit Connect Wagon brand for a whole new seven-seater, and it looks set to challenge two of the industry’s current obsessions: Millennials and SUVs.
Indeed, unlike the industry’s usual obsession with Millennial drivers, this one is for the 50+ bracket. Nonetheless, even with that targeting in Ford’s message, the 2023 Transit Connect Wagon could well find favor among younger families too. Based, as the name suggests, on the Ford Transit van, there’ll be not only space for hobbies, kids, or grandkids inside, but a range of new engines at the front.
That includes a brand new 1.5-liter EcoBlue diesel, which Ford says should be good for 30 mpg on the EPA’s highway run. Alternatively, there’s a new 2.0-liter four-cylinder gas engine with direct injection. That has Auto Start-Stop as standard, and like the diesel will be paired with a new 8-speed automatic transmission.
Ford isn’t saying quite how much either variant will cost at this point, but it is talking up the affordability in general. According to the automaker, it expects the 2023 Transit Connect to be one of the most affordable seven-passenger vehicles on the market in the US when it arrives at dealerships. That offers up an unusual challenge to what has been one of the most enduring segments of the past few years.
While sales of sedans and other body types have stumbled, SUVs and crossovers have proved more than popular among new car buyers. Typically, owners praise the flexibility of their design and cargo capacity, along with the higher-than-average seating. It’s a skew that automakers have been happy to accommodate, too, with the mass-market names rolling out numerous sizes of model from tiny crossovers through to vast seven or eight seaters.
Meanwhile, companies more commonly associated with luxury and sports cars have added SUVs to their ranges too, often finding the new, larger models quickly come to eclipse sales of their traditional cars. Jaguar, for example, bucked its historic trend with the F-PACE SUV in 2023, only to see the luxury crossover become the best-seller in its line-up. The new 2023 Jaguar E-PACE we drove recently is expected to quickly enter the top three of the automaker’s best-sellers, though some industry experts predict it could well overtake the F-PACE entirely and become the most popular of Jaguar’s cars.
Nonetheless while crossovers and SUVs have found popularity, they’ve also generally settled on premium pricing. That’s both the case in the dealership, where the bigger cars tend to be more expensive than sedans and hatchbacks, and at the pump. The larger, heavier vehicles typically prove more thirsty, even if they’re not carrying the full complement of which they’re capable.
Ford’s strategy with the 2023 Transit Connect, therefore, is a cunning one. Finding a seven-seater that isn’t a huge minivan or an SUV in the US is tough, given the country’s ongoing antipathy toward wagons in general. Similarly, finding an affordable way to transport that many people is also tough. While SUV and crossover sales are unlikely to go anywhere, at least not any time soon, there’s almost certain to be a market out there among drivers needing seats but not wanting to cough up the levels of cash a sizable truck would demand.
If the Transit Connect has ambitions in redirecting SUV sales, it also bucks the trend in terms of audience. Ford is explicitly targeting a demographic that, for the most part, automakers have been happy to let simmer unchallenged for some time now. The market-wide fear that younger drivers will give up on car ownership altogether has arguably led car-makers to neglect their more willing customers.
While coaxing Millennials out of ride-sharing and off public transit might be a perennial focus for the auto industry right now, in reality there’s still plenty of hay to be made from Baby Boomers. The 50+ demographic is – at 111 million people in the US – still bigger than both the Millennial and Gen X categories, at least when compared individually. Meanwhile, research by AARP suggests that, far from the lease reluctance of their younger counterparts, one in three Boomers is planning to pick up a new car within the next three years.
Many of the messages that would once have been attached to crossovers and SUVs, about flexibility, cargo capacity, and practicality, are now being attached to the new Transit Connect. And, while Ford may not come out and say it explicitly, downsizing from larger, gas-guzzling vehicles to something more frugal and easy to park is a known priority among older demographics.
What seems on the face of it to be a simple van conversion, therefore, arguably has far more importance for the state of the industry today. SUV and crossover sales continue to flourish, but the margins they command mean automakers like Ford are arguably bypassing buyers on a tighter budget. Those customers are instead likely to head into the used marketplace, something all of the car companies are keen to curtail as investors watch closely at new car sales. The 2023 Ford Transit Connect may look like a compact van, but it’s carrying a whole lot more weight than you might first expect.
Ford’S Transit Connect Is Much More Than Just A Van
Ford’s Transit Connect is much more than just a van
When is a van not a van? When it’s an affordable Ford family-carrier targeting Baby Boomers with misty-eyed memories of old nameplates. The American automaker has resurrected the Ford Transit Connect Wagon brand for a whole new seven-seater, and it looks set to challenge two of the industry’s current obsessions: Millennials and SUVs.
Indeed, unlike the industry’s usual obsession with Millennial drivers, this one is for the 50+ bracket. Nonetheless, even with that targeting in Ford’s message, the 2023 Transit Connect Wagon could well find favor among younger families too. Based, as the name suggests, on the Ford Transit van, there’ll be not only space for hobbies, kids, or grandkids inside, but a range of new engines at the front.
That includes a brand new 1.5-liter EcoBlue diesel, which Ford says should be good for 30 mpg on the EPA’s highway run. Alternatively, there’s a new 2.0-liter four-cylinder gas engine with direct injection. That has Auto Start-Stop as standard, and like the diesel will be paired with a new 8-speed automatic transmission.
Ford isn’t saying quite how much either variant will cost at this point, but it is talking up the affordability in general. According to the automaker, it expects the 2023 Transit Connect to be one of the most affordable seven-passenger vehicles on the market in the US when it arrives at dealerships. That offers up an unusual challenge to what has been one of the most enduring segments of the past few years.
While sales of sedans and other body types have stumbled, SUVs and crossovers have proved more than popular among new car buyers. Typically, owners praise the flexibility of their design and cargo capacity, along with the higher-than-average seating. It’s a skew that automakers have been happy to accommodate, too, with the mass-market names rolling out numerous sizes of model from tiny crossovers through to vast seven or eight seaters.
Meanwhile, companies more commonly associated with luxury and sports cars have added SUVs to their ranges too, often finding the new, larger models quickly come to eclipse sales of their traditional cars. Jaguar, for example, bucked its historic trend with the F-PACE SUV in 2023, only to see the luxury crossover become the best-seller in its line-up. The new 2023 Jaguar E-PACE we drove recently is expected to quickly enter the top three of the automaker’s best-sellers, though some industry experts predict it could well overtake the F-PACE entirely and become the most popular of Jaguar’s cars.
Nonetheless while crossovers and SUVs have found popularity, they’ve also generally settled on premium pricing. That’s both the case in the dealership, where the bigger cars tend to be more expensive than sedans and hatchbacks, and at the pump. The larger, heavier vehicles typically prove more thirsty, even if they’re not carrying the full complement of which they’re capable.
Ford’s strategy with the 2023 Transit Connect, therefore, is a cunning one. Finding a seven-seater that isn’t a huge minivan or an SUV in the US is tough, given the country’s ongoing antipathy toward wagons in general. Similarly, finding an affordable way to transport that many people is also tough. While SUV and crossover sales are unlikely to go anywhere, at least not any time soon, there’s almost certain to be a market out there among drivers needing seats but not wanting to cough up the levels of cash a sizable truck would demand.
If the Transit Connect has ambitions in redirecting SUV sales, it also bucks the trend in terms of audience. Ford is explicitly targeting a demographic that, for the most part, automakers have been happy to let simmer unchallenged for some time now. The market-wide fear that younger drivers will give up on car ownership altogether has arguably led car-makers to neglect their more willing customers.
While coaxing Millennials out of ride-sharing and off public transit might be a perennial focus for the auto industry right now, in reality there’s still plenty of hay to be made from Baby Boomers. The 50+ demographic is – at 111 million people in the US – still bigger than both the Millennial and Gen X categories, at least when compared individually. Meanwhile, research by AARP suggests that, far from the lease reluctance of their younger counterparts, one in three Boomers is planning to pick up a new car within the next three years.
Many of the messages that would once have been attached to crossovers and SUVs, about flexibility, cargo capacity, and practicality, are now being attached to the new Transit Connect. And, while Ford may not come out and say it explicitly, downsizing from larger, gas-guzzling vehicles to something more frugal and easy to park is a known priority among older demographics.
What seems on the face of it to be a simple van conversion, therefore, arguably has far more importance for the state of the industry today. SUV and crossover sales continue to flourish, but the margins they command mean automakers like Ford are arguably bypassing buyers on a tighter budget. Those customers are instead likely to head into the used marketplace, something all of the car companies are keen to curtail as investors watch closely at new car sales. The 2023 Ford Transit Connect may look like a compact van, but it’s carrying a whole lot more weight than you might first expect.
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