Who’s buying a plug-in hybrid Ford Ranger?
Plug-in hybrid utes are very popular right now. And I have one right behind me. No, it’s not the BYD Shark. A lot of you have bought that car and it is extremely popular here in Australia because one, it saves a lot of money on fuel and two, it’s a ute. And three, it’s actually pretty affordable. The car behind me is a bit different. This is a Ford Ranger plug-in hybrid. It says FEV on the side. And this one is the Storm Track, which is the most expensive Ford Ranger plug-in hybrid you can buy. Now, you just ignored everything I just said because you’re going, “Cameron, what the hell are you wearing?” Well, I’ve just been skiing because I’ve taken this Ford Ranger on a giant road trip cuz I wanted to answer two big questions. One, what’s the fuel economy like on a plug-in hybrid Ford Ranger? Number two, what happens to the driving experience once you run out of your battery, which usually happens in the first hour of your road trip? I went on a 6-h hour road trip to get here and the battery ran out within 40 km. So, I’m going to tell you what happened to the driving experience. Now, before I get started in this review, you have to visit productreview.com.au if you want to know anything about the ownership experience of a car before you buy one. I write my reviews on these cars on that website, but you can also do your research on cars you might be interested in buying. You can do your research on what owners thought of the Toyota Yaras, what they thought of the Land Rover Discovery. Every single car you can think of is on that site and you can go and check out those reviews right now and you can even write your own one on your own car as well. Okay, so come for a tour. Let’s take this camera. Okay, cool. So behind me is the Ford Ranger Storm Track and this thing, yes, like I said, is priced at over $90,000 drive away, which makes it a lot more expensive than a BYD Shark. So that is one of the downsides. If you want to buy this over a BYD Shark, you’ll be paying more just to get a Ford Ranger. You have Rangers spelt across the bonnet here, which I like, but you don’t really need it if you don’t really want it there. You could take those off if you really wanted to. I do like this paint option you can get on the Ford Ranger Storm Track. It is pretty unique. And you are also getting these unique wheels and allterrain tires, which I actually think look pretty good, but some people don’t like them. I actually think they look decent. You have FEV stamped on the side, too. No one is going to mistake this for anything other than a plug-in hybrid. A giant Storm Track badge here on the side. And you even have side stripes, decals on the side. Racing stripes if you will, right here along the side. Not my favorite thing. I would probably take those off cuz it looks a little bit much cuz everything looks pretty good except this looks a bit excessive. You’ve got these plastic side steps here. And of course, you have two fuel filler caps here at the back. This one here is for electricity. And this one only allows you to slow charge this battery, which I think is a downside on a work truck like this. But here is your way that you’re going to charge up that battery that’s on board this plug-in hybrid ute. And of course, here you have your fuel filler cap, which is locked at the moment. But this is for petrol because this has a petrol engine. And the other thing you must know about this compared to a BYD Shark is that this has a live rear axle allowing for better rear wheel articulation. We’ll get into that a little bit later. I really like this sideep here which you see on pretty much every Ford Ranger. And then this thing is kitted out to the nines. You have your adjustable sail back here which you can just pick up and roll back just like that. And you get some cross rails which you can turn into roof racks here and turn this into a load area making it easy to carry longer items. Now this button right here allows you to open up your automatic hard cover which you can activate with your key or you can use a button on the inside here or you can use a button on the inside of the car. And here you can see it’s holding my skis back here which has been very practical. I’ve been very impressed with the practicality of the rear tray. It comes with a bed liner, of course, so you’re not going to scratch up your car’s paint. And what’s very unique about the plug-in hybrid here is that you have two plugs here at the back, which have little seals on them to make sure that water doesn’t get in the way. So, if you’re going camping or you’re on a work site, this is a very good inclusion to have because it’s pretty much the biggest reason why you would buy one, apart from fuel consumption reasons. Now, on the inside here, Ford’s not going to let you forget that you’re driving a Ford Ranger Storm Track because you have the special gray highlights here in the seat. You also have some stitching up here. And of course, you have Storm Track right here on the dashboard. And the steering wheel even has some gray accents as well. But the biggest complaint I have about this is that this is a nearly $100,000 Ford Ranger, and you’re still getting the very lame screen here. This is the smaller version of the Ford Ranger screens you can get. You can get a much bigger version which you’ll find on a Ford Ranger Raptor or a Ford Ranger Platinum. You also have an EV mode that allows you to cycle through some different EV options here. So, you can go through and charge up the battery. You can hold the battery, but because we have no charge because yes, Ford didn’t supply me with a charging cable for this trip unfortunately. So, that means I was only able to get one round of charge here while I was away from home. Unfortunately, while I’m on the road, there’s no other way to charge it up because this doesn’t have DC fast charging capabilities, meaning I have to rely on using the engine as a generator to power up this battery, which is going to take a really long time, and I just don’t have time to sit by and have it do that. And it doesn’t really make sense cuz I’m going to be burning petrol to do that, and I really just want to keep my fuel consumption low. But overall, the materials are quite nice. It is still a standard top of the range Ford Ranger on the inside. But I’ll be honest with you, for the price tag, I would be expecting all the trim features you can get on a Ford Ranger. And unfortunately, that screen just not being the biggest screen you can get is a bit disappointing because you’re going to find it on the Ford Ranger Platinum and the Ford Ranger Raptor. But you’re going to hop into this thing, which costs nearly $100,000. And unfortunately, Ford has skimped on that. But they have included pretty much every other option you can get on a Ford Ranger, which helps justify its price tag. Now, something that makes this unique compared to other plug-in hybrid utes is the engine. It actually has a good motor under the bonnet. It’s not just a generator. It’s a proper engine. This is a 2.3 L EcoBoost 4-cylinder engine that you’ll find in the EcoBoost Ford Mustang. So, it is a performanceorientated motor, but this is D-tuned for this car. So, combined outputs with this plug-in hybrid system with its battery on board is around 200 kW and then you’re going to get over 600 N me of torque when you combine both electric power and this 2.3 L 4-cylinder petrol motor. Now, it’s all well and good to have all that power, but what happens when the battery depletes? Well, that is a big question I have on my mind, and that’s why I’m going to show you what this road trip was like driving this thing. And so I took this on a 1,000 km road trip to see just how much fuel I would save by buying one of these. The Ford Ranger Storm Track only has an electric range of around 40 km per charge. So you quickly run out of that if you’re going on a big road trip like this. And I didn’t have a cable or a place to charge this when I was out on the road. And combined with the electric powertrain, I was averaging around 2 L per 100 km in the city. And then that started to rise once my battery hit 0%. Now, after driving this hybrid Ford Ranger for quite some time now, I’ve noticed this thing is really quiet. There’s pretty much no wind noise, which I really appreciate. This thing that’s helped because this thing is a bit more aerodynamic. The center of gravity is nice and low as well. So, I don’t feel like you’ll compromise in terms of your cornering ability by carrying around all that extra weight because you have that battery on board. And I’ve been very impressed with the performance and smoothness of this four-cylinder petrol turbocharged engine. It’s not just like a noisy generator. This thing genuinely is the heart and soul of the car and it just so happens to have a hybrid powertrain attached to it. So you don’t feel like you’re driving around a car that has a noisy generator on board. Now you can go ahead in this EV mode and allow the engine to charge up the battery while you drive. But that will increase your fuel economy figures. So if you want to have a low fuel consumption rate, you really have to charge this thing up at home every single chance you can get. The regen braking has been pretty much terrible. uh I haven’t got much energy, if any energy back into the battery by driving down some long uh roads without going downhill. So, that’s been a bit disappointing. But other than that, I really love how rugged this thing is. It’s really confident on the road. I just really love the fact that having this hybrid powertrain has not compromised the Ranger in any way. Now, to be honest, this just drove like a regular Ford Ranger. It just felt a little bit heavier on the road, but the off-road and on-road comfort didn’t feel like it was compromised at all. So, after driving this thing for over 1,000 km and over 13 hours, I’ve averaged around 8.2 L per 100 km. Over 200 of those kilometers have driven on electric power, which I’m not sure how because my batteries indicated it’s been at 0% since I used all 40 km of it. So, I have to investigate that. But, I’ve been very impressed with the overall fuel consumption, especially for a large ute like this. And I haven’t been driving this thing like a grandma either. And something else pointing out after this road trip, I’m exhausted, but it is worth noting that the power on this thing was excellent. I’m really impressed with the power delivery on this thing, even though my battery percentage was at 0% pretty much the entire drive. So, very impressed with the performance of this ute out on the road. You might be asking me, why would anyone buy one of these? Well, a lot of people should buy this if they are looking to buy a Ford Ranger that retains its off-road capabilities, but it gets added benefits of lower fuel consumption. And you also have an onboard battery which does allow you to drive around town without burning any petrol, which might be useful for a lot of people who are looking to do that. And you also should have pretty decent resale value because this is a Ford Ranger at the end of the day. Would I buy one? No. I just think it’s too expensive. I’d rather buy a different type of Ford Ranger, unfortunately. And I just think it’s really hard to justify this price against other really good Ford Rangers like the Ford Ranger Raptor and also the Ford Ranger Tremor or even the Ford Ranger Platinum. Do I think it’s great? Yes. But I just think it’s a little bit expensive. My name’s Cameron. This is Product Review Cars. Thank you for watching.
I drove the new plug-in hybrid Ford Ranger Stormtrak over 1000km to test whether it’s a good idea to spend over $94,000 on one!
Skip to the best parts:
00:00 – 1:02 What is it?
1:02 – 1:30 What is ProductReview?
1:30 – 4:20 Exterior Features
4:20 – 6:21 Interior Features
6:21 – 7:05 Engine and Power
7:05 – 9:34 Road Trip and Fuel Consumption
9:34 – 10:24 Worth Buying?
