Ford drops Australia plans for Puma Gen-E small electric SUV

In a surprise announcement this week, Ford Australia’s marketing Director, Ambrose Henderson, has officially canned the Puma Gen-E for Australia.

Previously, the electric Puma was to be one of five electrified Fords on sale here by the end of 2024 – and as such would revive the Puma nameplate as the ICE version was discontinued here earlier this year.

Those five being the E-Transit, the E-Transit Custom, Mach-E, Puma Gen-E and one other, un-named, vehicle. The un-named model was widely tipped at the time to be a PHEV Ranger rather than the hoped-for F150 Lightning. This would mean the five were made up of four fully electric and one PHEV.

So what is the Puma Gen-E that we will now not be seeing here? Revealed as a coming model for Europe in March 2022, it was part of an aggressive push by Ford to have nine electrified models on sale there by the end of 2024.  By April 2023 it was also formally confirmed for Australia as part of that ‘five electrified Ford models by the end of 2024’ plan.

The Puma gen-E is a highly efficient small SUV offering a 376km (WLTP) range from its 43 kWh battery. Plus, despite being a small SUV, it has up to 574L of boot space as well as a 57 litre ‘froot’ (front boot). In the UK, it will sell for just under £29,995 (approx. AU$58,600) on-the-road.

However, since the European March 2022 announcement, the Puma Gen-E European launch date slipped to the point that orders only opened just opened there, with deliveries to begin in the second quarter of 2025.

Here, well whilst the E-Transit and Mach-E have arrived here and are doing quietly well (and the Ranger PHEV has been officially confirmed with deliveries to begin in the first half of 2025), the E-Transit Custom arrival date has been slipping to the point that we won’t see it this year.

Thankfully, the same press release has confirmed the E-Transit Custom will ‘soon’ arrive, along with a replacement electrified model for the Puma Gen-E.

Yes, instead of a fully electric small passenger SUV, we will get a plug in hybrid  version of the Transit Custom as part of Ford’s ‘five electrified model’ line-up … although it will be by mid-2025 instead of the end of 2024.

TheDriven’s take:

It is hard to say what prompted Ford Australia’s decision to drop the Puma Gen-E altogether, although with the slip in European and UK delivery dates, it would have come as no surprise that an Australian launch would be delayed … but canning it altogether has come as a shock.

Perhaps the culture war over EVs is starting up again with the election of the famously climate change denying Donald Trump to the US presidency – and Ford Australia are hedging their bets on an extended PHEV to BEV transition to not appear as siding with the ‘green left’ of politics in case the same happens here?

Who knows, but in the onslaught of new BEV models in the mid to lower price brackets (mainly from China), the Australian BEV buyer will hardly be starved of choice in 2025.

On the other hand, Ford may very well lose a number of ‘rusted on’ Ford buyers if they continue to fail in offering a BEV model in one of Australia’s largest selling vehicle segments.