Petrol Puma to be axed from Ford Oz line-up

FORD Australia has announced that it will discontinue internal combustion engine variants of its Puma small SUV by the middle of 2024.

The importer says it will instead “sharpen its focus” on electric-, commercial- and performance vehicles, making way for “growth opportunities” with a broadened Transit and Mustang range, and the fully electric Puma Gen-E.

Ford says it has sufficient stock of the Puma available to fulfill all current customer orders. The last shipment of petrol-powered Puma models will arrive in May, ahead of the introduction of the Puma Gen-E.

“Our focus is on vehicles in segments where we can really meet the unique needs of Australian customers,” explained Ford Australia president and CEO Andrew Birkic.

“We see particular opportunities in commercial vehicles – from Transit to E-Transit, Transit Custom to E-Transit Custom, alongside Ranger.

“We will also continue to focus on our performance line-up – from Mustang and Mustang Dark Horse, to Mustang Mach-E and Ranger Raptor – alongside a renewed emphasis on vehicles that help customers do the things they love, like towing a boat or caravan in an F-150, off-roading with friends in an Everest, or road-tripping with a large family in a Tourneo.

“We have not taken this decision lightly and thank the many loyal customers who have chosen Puma over the years.”

Mr Birkic’s statement comes just months after Ford Motor Company president and CEO Jim Farley’s 2023 Earnings Call in which he said the shift to electric vehicles will “sort the winners from the losers” of the industry.

Mr Farley said the switch to electric vehicles represents a “seismic shift” for the automotive industry and one that is also expected to see an increase in smaller and more affordable models take precedence, with a faster roll-out to all markets.

“Our next Gen 2 products will be profitable in the first 12 months of their launch … We’re going to spend less capital on larger SUVs,” he outlined.

“We’re also adjusting our capital, switching more focus on to smaller EV products.

“Now, this is important because we made a bet in silence two years ago. We developed a super-talented skunkworks team to create a low-cost EV platform.

“It was a small group, small team, some of the best EV engineers in the world, and it was separate from the Ford mothership – it was a start-up.”

Depsite the comments, GoAuto understands the Puma Gen-E is built upon the existing ICE underpinnings and will come only as part of the facelifted Puma line-up globally (and BEV only in Australia).

However – and like other manufacturers globally – Ford seems committed to part of a push toward small, affordable BEVs that can become profitable more quickly, rather than trying to absorb the cost of batteries into larger, and more expensive cars.

“All of our EV teams are ruthlessly focused on cost and efficiency in our EV products because the ultimate competition is going to be the affordable Tesla and the Chinese OEMs,” Mr Farley added.

The ICE-powered Puma is the second SUV to be culled from the Ford Australia line-up in the past year. In April of 2023 the importer announced it would discontinue the mid-sized Escape without announcing a replacement.

At the time, Mr Birkic said the decision made commercial sense for Ford Australia which would focus on its strong suits – the Ranger utility and its large SUV twin, Everest.