Ford’s F-150 Lightning electrical pickup has managed to seize a excessive charge of shoppers who hadn’t thought-about an electrical car earlier than, with EV newbies making up almost 80% of reservation-holders. And as Ford CEO Jim Farley underscored this week in a quarterly monetary name, there’s room to try this once more within the close to future with different car sorts—like with a three-row electrical SUV.

“Lots of new prospects purchased a Lightning that by no means owned a pickup truck earlier than,” stated Farley. “And we intend to try this with a three-row crossover and with a bunch of EV Professional automobiles, which we expect can be an enormous development for us.”

Ford may be eyeing the shape issue of the Ford Explorer, or former Ford Flex, maybe. An electrical model of the U.S. household mainstay—to not be confused with the VW-based Ford Explorer EV for Europe revealed in March—could preserve some present homeowners who have already got a Mach-E from transferring on to a different model for one thing bigger and electrical. 

Ford Explorer electrical crossover for Europe

“We additionally discovered that prospects are very loyal to full EV powertrains as soon as they enter, however they aren’t brand-loyal for his or her first buy,” added Farley, noting that over 60% of its prospects are new to Ford. “We’re seeing that the second EV buy is far more loyal to the model in these developed EV markets.”

Farley emphasised that such future fashions will quantity to large development, however that development must be managed.

“within the small, medium utility phase, will probably be a really saturated two-row EV market,” stated Farley. “In opposition to this backdrop to make sure worthwhile development, we all know we have now to have a recent, compelling providing with the correct value construction—one thing we proceed to enhance with the Mustang Mach-E.” 

2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E electrical powertrain

Waiting for that three-row, Farley additionally famous that Ford has lowered the invoice of supplies for the Mach-E by $5,000 per car. That’s seemingly one of many components that enabled vital price cuts for the Mustang Mach-E lineup once more earlier this week. 

Ford hasn’t but revealed which of several future EVs can be constructed at its Canadian plant in Oakville, Ontario, probably beginning in 2025, however that’s one doable manufacturing location for the three-row SUV. 

2022 Ford F-150 Lightning pre-production

In Ford’s final quarterly name, Farley revealed that future Ford EVs will be “radically simplified,” with fewer physique kinds and “only a handful of orderable mixtures.” He additionally emphasised that it will imply higher high quality and decrease manufacturing prices. 

“We need to have quite a lot of scale per high hat,” stated Farley on this week’s name, once more suggesting that the corporate is aiming to keep away from area of interest fashions. One such instance of this may be the “SUV coupe” physique kinds that some automakers have launched to the EV market. 

Such an electrical SUV wouldn’t be the primary with three rows. It might must rival the Kia EV9 and, upmarket, the Rivian R1S, Tesla Mannequin X, and Volvo EX90, amongst others. But when it could get out forward of another market choices but to come back—because the Lightning did—Ford may be capable of create one other hit.