Bojan Vrbnjak
The history of the Ford Fiesta model ended in July 2023 with the production of the last model of the current generation. But what happened a year ago may have been just “Goodbye” and not a proper goodbye.
As reported by Autocar, the American company is planning several compact models from 2026, all of which will be based on the new platform. The development of the new architecture was entrusted to Alan Clark, a former Tesla engineer. It should be used to produce more compact and economical models, which would be classified under the Explorer, Capri and Mustang Mach-E models. According to Marin Gjaja, chief operating officer of Ford's Model e division, the first car on the new platform will be launched between late 2026 and early 2027 and will initially debut in the US before going on sale in Europe.
This first model could be the next generation of the Puma model, but we can only guess about the other products at the moment. However, Gjaja is convinced that "they willelectric cars became smaller and smaller over time", so it is possible to imagine a real family of small cars. And the return of the Fiesta, the brand's historic name, perhaps even more so than the Mustang, Capri and Explorer, at least in terms of sales figures achieved over the decades.
The resources that Ford devotes to this platform are really big: according to a recent report by the American website TechCrunch, there are about 300 people in the team working on this architecture. They include engineers from Tesla, Rivian and Apple, and even aerodynamicists from Formula 1. As for the powertrain, Gjaja explains that the new architecture will likely use low-cost lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery technology, which is becoming increasingly popular in electric vehicles .
Additionally, the shapes of these future Ford models will be “unconventional" in "different” in their segments. We just have to wait for the next development to see in which direction the plans of the American brand will go.
