Darren Palmer: meet ‘Mr EV’
DARREN PALMER REMEMBERS the moment
h i s v i sion of e le c t r ic c a r s c h a n ge d. It d r ov e h i m t o
leave a dream job launching exciting conventional
cars to lead Ford’s headlong dash towards an
entirely new kind of battery-propelled mobility.
“I w a s i n c h a r ge of Mu s t a n g, E x plor e r a nd
Lincoln’s performance models, and having a great
t i me ,” Pa l me r r e c a l l s. T he n out of t he blue he got
the call. The new challenge, it turned out, was to
become product development director of Ford’s
Project Edison, a 70-strong cross-functional
think-tank set up in a former hosiery factory in
Detroit’s Corktown district to conceive a new
range of high-performance EVs.
“I w a s u n s u r e at f i r s t ,” Pa l me r r e c a l l s. “For
me, electric cars were more about sensible
buying than the exciting cars I knew. Then
Sherif Marakby, our autonomous vehicle CEO,
s a id , ‘ t r u s t me t h i s i s goi n g t o b e t he ne x t bi g
development in cars’. When you know them,
you’ll love them. And he was right.
“I just couldn’t believe how good these new
cars were. They could do things you’d never do
in an ICE [internal combustion-engined] car.
T he y w e r e ju s t b e t t e r.”
Such passion from Palmer, a tall, fast-talking
Englishman who has spent much of his 28-year
Ford career on the fast-track, is all the more
powerful for the fact that this is the man who
delivered Ford’s much-loved Fiesta ST200,
a skunkworks pocket-rocket universally admired.
He also delivered the Mustang to Europe,
proudly watching it become the world’s
best-selling sports car. He’s a car lover since
c h i ld ho o d , s o w he n he s t a r t s t a l k i n g a b out t h i s
new strain of EVs being “sexy and emotional”,
you need to listen.
The big plan, first publicised by Ford around
18 mont h s a go a nd e x pa nde d si nc e , i s t o s p e nd
$11 billion on a cycle of exciting EVs beginning
next year. Under the deal recently agreed with
Volkswagen, Fords built on the MEB platform will
kick in from 2023. The f low will start next year
with a ‘Mustang-based crossover’. The name Mach
One was f loated early on, although it has since
e me r ge d t h at it w i l l b e c a l le d t he Ma c h E. A bat t e r y
Ford F150 will come before 2022, says Palmer,
and a fully electric Transit. Palmer won’t confirm
t h at a R a n ge r or Br onc o (t he f a mou s c ompa c t 4x4
that’s returning with conventional power after
disappearing in the mid-1990s) are in the BEV mix,
but he doesn’t deny it either.
“We’re hitting our biggest icons first,” he says,
“but we have more. And we’ll keep working
through them.” Meanwhile, starting now, Ford
is launching a new or renewed supporting range
of smaller plug-in hybrids, first being the Escape
SUV (our Kuga) with a larger Explorer not
far behind, although it isn’t currently planned
for the UK.
Project Edison grew out of an earlier plan to
bu i ld a s e c ond ge ne r at ion of t he de c e nt but du l l
economy BEVs, such as a second-generation
e le c t r ic Fo c u s. But t he de c i sion t o s t op m a k i n g
saloons in the US, along with a realisation that the
way to sell new BEVs at a profit was to build exciting
cars closely related to existing icons, brought anew philosophy. “We decided very carefully where
w e ’d pl ay i n t he e le c t r ic c a r m a rk e t , a nd t h at e v e r y
one would amplify the characteristics of the model
it was based on. Each one had to be extremely
de si r a ble , but at a n at t a i n a ble pr ic e ,” s ay s Pa l me r.
“ T he s e c a r s w on’t ne c e s s a r i l y b e c he ap, but
they’ll be gotta-have-it models, sold at a price we
judge is attainable for our existing customers.
They’re our focus. Ford has always democratised
t e c h nolog y a nd t h i s w i l l b e mor e of t he s a me.
But e a rl y a dop t e r s of BE Vs h av e a lot t o de a l w it h ,
so Project Edison is working on every aspect of
ownership, from the minute someone considers an
electric car, through the whole web experience to
buying, owning, using and charging.”
On keeping costs under control – already a
proven BEV bugbear – Palmer acknowledges ◊
Palmer has embraced electrification
as an exciting proposition, but he had
to b e co nv i n ce d of th e i d e a a t fi r st
Ford’s Mustang-based
EV, to b e c a l l e d th e
M a ch E , i s d u e n ex t ye a r
Palmer oversaw the giant-killing Fiesta ST200 project
Electric version of iconic Transit is in the pipeline
54 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 14 AUGUST 2019