Is Ford Going to Build a 200 mile Electric Vehicle?

At the end of 2014, Tesla Motors seemed alone as the only major automaker that put fully electric vehicles on the street that had a usable range over 90 miles. With a reported 265 miles per charge for their top model, Tesla seemed to be light-years ahead of everyone else. That is of course, until January 12th, 2015. At the first day of the North American International Auto Show, Chevrolet introduced the Chevy Bolt. While it looked a bit like a fancy Fiesta, it was in fact a challenge to Tesla Motors. The vehicle was slated to cost around $35,000 and have a range of 200 miles – all electric. In one fell swoop, Chevy created the EV (electrical vehicle) race. Nissan and more have added rumors to the mix to make thing interesting.

Appearing on a business news program in late 2014 Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan, was asked by the host about the next model Nissan Leaf. While he didn’t want to go into detail about the battery, the show host asked him about the range, which he acknowledged should be around 400km per charge or about 250 miles. The current production version of the Nissan Leaf has a range of 86 miles. However, with Tesla planning a Model III by 2017 with a 200-mile range that costs around $30,000 and Chevy looking to debut its Bolt around that same timeframe, where will the upgraded Nissan fit in? Also, will there be more competition from Detroit?

Rumors have been circulating during the past few days that Ford is planning to join the race to build a mass-market electric vehicle with a range of 200 miles. Numerous reports have indicated they will be making an announcement about that vehicle this year. But those rumors have proven to be wrong. GreenCarReports published a piece about Ford’s potential launch of an electric vehicle similar to the Bolt and received a response from Ford. Said Deep the North American Product Communications Manager for Ford, told CRC, “We do not comment on speculation but can confirm these reports are not accurate.” Thus Ford isn’t officially involved in the mass market electric car race, which now appears to only involve Chevrolet and Tesla Motors.