Ford’s Price Drops Are Making Electric Van Life Happen Faster! – CleanTechnica

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The folks over at Electrek made an interesting observation recently: the price of a Ford Transit van is the same whether you go for the gas or the electric version! Not only is this exciting for people who use vans to make a living, but it’s also fantastic for people who live in their vans.

New E-Transit Pricing & Features

Ealier this year, Ford made some improvements to the E-Transit. Battery capacity increases from 67 to 89 kWh was a big one, allowing the van to have a lot more range. It also got faster Level 1 and 2 (AC) and Level 3 (DC) charging, another thing that makes it more suitable for road trips. For 2025, the changes aren’t as drastic as earlier 2024’s were, but getting a few upfitting (interior customization) options from the factory was a big deal.

Available packages are:

• Electrician trade package
• HVAC trade package
• General contractor package
• Foldable shelving package

All of this now comes for a lot cheaper. A basic van (before any upfitting or other options) starts at $51,000. If you order a cutaway or chassis cab (something you’d build a box truck or RV on), you can get the bare bones version ready to be built on for a few thousand cheaper.

But, most importantly, the pricing is the same as gas-powered Transit vans. This gives buyers all of the cost savings of electric without having to worry about a higher payment or slapping more cash on the barrelhead up front to get those savings. For many independent contractors, this will mean that there’s no need to calculate the total cost of operation, as the van’s price doesn’t make itself an obstacle.

The Wider Upfitting Ecosystem

It’s worth noting that van upfitting has been around for a long time, and the number of specialized van layouts that you can get is a little crazy. 

For example, not only can you hire a company to put in a custom interior for camping, but a camping interior with room under the bed for two or three motorcycles. This interior is designed for people who drive around the country or even the whole continent racing motorcycles. For that particular population (I’d imagine there are only a few thousand traveling motorcycle racers), the need for a place to sleep, a place to clean one’s self up, and a place to meet with other people is all needed. And, if you pay the right company the right sum of money, they can make your van have all of those features in a compact space for two!

If you can imagine an oddball set of needs, you can very likely find a company offering an upfitted van to meet those needs. Every profession (traveling or not), every kind of traveling worker or specialist, stylists (for humans and pets), investigators, carpet cleaners, and repairers of all kinds can usually benefit from having a van with space to work, sleep, or maybe both.

Some upfitters even work to do more wild modifications, like pop-tops, slide-out drawers and even small rooms, and specialized box vans built on cutaway or chassis vans. Many designs for a specialized vehicle are only built once or twice because a person’s needs are so unique that nobody can mass produce them. 

The DIY Ecosystem Will Get More Reliable Vans

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about vans, it’s that they can live for a long, long time. The first owner might be a company that uses the vans for cargo hauling or carrying tools to jobsites. The second owner will probably be someone doing lower paying work, like an Amazon delivery driver. Eventually, the van gets onto Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, has high mileage, and someone will pay cash for it.

At every step along this multi-level waterfall, different needs are met. The first buyer needs maximum reliability and is doing the kind of work that can pay for that, so new vehicles are the best choice. The second buyer wants good reliability, but needs to save money by avoiding depreciation. Subsequent buyers are in greater need of saving money, like a working professional just getting started out on a shoestring budget who can afford to do some repairs if it means getting the business started, and climbing up the waterfall to better vehicles later.

At the very bottom (in the pool where things get battered) are people who have minimal money and can’t be picky about lower mileage and higher reliability. People living in vans who can’t take out a loan often fall into this category, as do people who are using the van for work and have almost no budget to start with and no ability to get one on payments. This can be pretty risky because the van can break down, but it beats living on the sidewalk or not starting a small business and working at McDonald’s forever.

But, with electric drive, more vans will trickle down to the bottom of the used market without being a ticking timebomb. Because they aren’t powered by a primitive pile of pistons (yes, I stole this from Dr. Smith in the original Lost in Space), they’ll probably lose range but won’t totally die on the side of the road at the worst time. Add in the advantages of having a giant battery (powering air conditioning and tools off-grid without a generator), and the beater vans of tomorrow will be a lot better than the beater vans of today!

Price Parity Means This Happens Faster

For people in the lower market to get these more reliable used vans, the trickle-down process has to start at the top. Without new electric vans being bought, it just can’t happen. By making electric vans cost the same up front as a new gas-powered van, Ford is accelerating the sale of new vans, which means that more beater vans will hit the market faster.

This doesn’t help people buying a beater van today, unfortunately, but it does mean that in 5–7 years, it’s going to start happening! It’s just a waiting game now.

Featured image by Ford.