Ford’s plans for an electric future are all charged up after end of Fiesta

After 46 remarkable years, Ford has just taken the time to introduce its highly popular Fiesta hatchback.

Over ten generations (including interim facelifts), the supermini has fallen victim to Ford’s electric future.

It will be abolished next year as the auto giant shifts its strategic priorities towards a new range of modern electric crossovers and SUVs ahead of the UK government’s ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.

Founded in 1903, the American auto giant is accelerating its “transition to an electric future” in which it says all passenger cars will be fully electric by 2030 — and the rest by 2035.

That required a complete rethink of the Ford model range.

A FRESH PLAN

By 2024, three new electric passenger cars and four new electric commercial vehicles will be launched in the UK and mainland Europe.

In addition to the existing Mustang Mach-e, an electric Puma compact crossover, a medium crossover and a sport crossover will come.

Also in the pipeline are four electric vans of various sizes, based on the Ford Transit and Tourneo ranges.

For just as the pioneering Henry Ford revolutionized mass-produced car production in the early 1900s with the Model-T starting in 1908, now in the early 21st century, Ford is getting to grips with a rival disruptor – Elon Musk’s Tesla.

And while Ford’s mainstream cars remain popular, it’s the “trucks” — from huge flatbeds and F-150s to large SUVs — that are the most profitable. Simply put, the party is over for Fiesta. But that doesn’t mean it’s for Ford.

To pave the way for its electric future, Ford will stop production of the S-MAX family car and Galaxy multifunction vehicle in Valencia, Spain in April next year and Fiesta production in Cologne, Germany, in June. next year. British production ended at Dagenham in 2002.

GREEN PLANS

Ford said an electric version of the existing Fiesta – which costs from £19,000 – was simply not viable.

The Fiesta nameplate will be retired from the unofficial ‘Ford Hall of Fame’, which already houses legendary names such as Cortina, Capri, Zephyr, Zodiac, Anglia (as used by Harry Potter), Granada, Sierra, Escort, Mondeo and – from 2025 — even the relative newbie Focus.

Ironically, the price of used Fiestas has skyrocketed as demand increased following news of their elimination.

AutoTrader said a nearly new Fiesta is up £4,300 to £23,601, about £405 more than a brand new equivalent of £23,196.

The bittersweet demise of the Fiesta marks a moment of sadness and nostalgia for a car that touched millions, but is also a celebration of a model that has brought joy to so many for over ten generations.

More than 4.8 million of the popular small hatchback Fiestas for all the family have been sold in the UK since their launch in 1976, out of a total of over 22 million worldwide.

It was the UK’s top-selling new car for 12 consecutive years from 2009 to 2020, but was knocked out of the top spot last year by the rival Opel Corsa. In its launch year, a Fiesta even appeared alongside Roger Moore in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.

We often mark the passage of time through the cars we have owned, driven or desired, and time, like life, does not stand still.

That was the mantra of former global Ford CEO Jacques Nasser (nicknamed ‘Jac the Knife’ for his zeal to cut costs). He appreciated how important names were.

For example, the Focus, as a replacement for the long-running Escort, would originally be called Fusion. But the name leaked out before the worldwide launch of the car at the Geneva Motor Show in 1998.

Nasser was so furious that he kept the new name top secret. At the unveiling dinner on the eve of the show, which I attended, a special print shop was set up next door to insert the name into press releases, only after he revealed it on stage.

The name, then Ford’s president gleefully said, was “Focus.”

TIME TO SHINE

Now Ford must focus on catching up with Tesla and rivals by going big in electric. So change is inevitable.

It’s already started with a bold move – when Ford dared to put the classic petrolhead muscle-car name Mustang on its electric zero-emission Mustang Mach-e.

But that’s just the beginning.

Ford says it plans to sell more than 600,000 electric vehicles across Europe by 2026, and that electric passenger car production at the Cologne Electrification Center will reach 1.2 million vehicles in six years, noting: “At Ford in Europe, we are accelerating our efforts to go all-in on electrification, with our passenger cars being fully electric by 2030 — and all vehicles in our Ford portfolio by 2035.

“We will introduce three new exciting electric passenger cars and four new electric commercial vehicles in Europe by 2024.”

But Auto Express editor-in-chief Steve Fowler said the Fiesta’s demise meant yet another affordable new hatchback was denied to motorists on modest incomes.