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

“Loads of new prospects purchased a Lightning that by no means owned a pickup truck earlier than,” mentioned Farley. “And we intend to do this with a three-row crossover and with a bunch of EV Professional autos, which we expect will likely be an enormous progress 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—might hold some present homeowners who have already got a Mach-E from shifting 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 way more loyal to the model in these developed EV markets.”

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

“within the small, medium utility section, will probably be a really saturated two-row EV market,” mentioned Farley. “In opposition to this backdrop to make sure worthwhile progress, we all know we’ve to have a recent, compelling providing with the proper price construction—one thing we proceed to enhance with the Mustang Mach-E.” 

2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E electrical powertrain

Looking forward to that three-row, Farley additionally famous that Ford has diminished the invoice of supplies for the Mach-E by $5,000 per car. That’s probably one of many components that enabled important value cuts for the Mustang Mach-E lineup once more earlier this week. 

Ford hasn’t but revealed which of a number of future EVs will likely be constructed at its Canadian plant in Oakville, Ontario, doubtlessly beginning in 2025, however that’s one potential 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 likely be “radically simplified,” with fewer physique types and “only a handful of orderable combos.” He additionally emphasised that this can imply higher high quality and decrease manufacturing prices. 

“We need to have a number of scale per prime hat,” mentioned 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 could be the “SUV coupe” physique types that some automakers have launched to the EV market. 

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