To a typical vehicle shopper, Ford Motor Co.'s 2022 E-Transit van might not seem impressive.
The automaker is asking buyers to pay more than a $10,000 premium over the gasoline-powered model to get an estimated 126 miles of range — a third of what some of the latest EVs promise.
But the price and range make sense for the commercial customers Ford is targeting with the E-Transit, company officials say.
"There's a difference between retail and fleet customers," Ted Cannis, general manager of Ford's North American commercial business, told Automotive News. "In the retail world, you buy everything on a might — 'I might drive 300 miles to visit my parents in Chicago,' or 'I might buy a three-row because one time we traveled with another family and their kids.' In the commercial world, everything is for a specific use case. They never buy more than they need."