Ford Transit Connect range
There’s a straightforward panel van body in the Connect range, without any rear seats, and then the double-row FlexCab. Both of these are available in a standard outside length (known as L1) and then a longer, ‘L2’ version, but there is no variation on roof height. That leads to four main body configurations, with a choice of diesel or PHEV drivetrains on offer for all.
As an L2 FlexCab with the PHEV system like our test van, this is already one of the most expensive Transit Connects you can option up, and furthermore our vehicle was in the higher of the only two trim levels available for the petrol hybrid, which are Trend and Active. The former of these has some black exterior detailing, for the rear bumper and door handles and so on, it doesn’t have any roof rails, and it also runs on steel wheels with plastic covers.
Standard equipment includes (but is not limited to) a Quickclear heated windscreen, a 10-inch infotainment display and digital instrument cluster, dual heated and powered mirrors, auto lights, twin USB-C 45-watt ports in the front, manual air conditioning, and four-way adjustable front seats.
The Active, as tested here, mimics Ford’s off-road-themed line of road cars, of which there have been Fiesta Active and Focus Active models, and has far more body-coloured exterior features, as well as a honeycomb front grille with a silver skid plate like an SUV. It also gains silver roof rails, as well as plenty of luxuries like an electric folding function for the door mirrors, LED exterior lighting with adaptive and automatic headlamps, auto wipers, a Sensico man-made leather steering wheel and gearknob, mirrors for the driver and passenger sun-visors, and dual-zone electronic climate control. The finishing touches to mark the Active out are ‘A’-branded upholstery in the cabin and then two-tone black-and-silver 17-inch alloy wheels, which both serve to give it less of a commercial vehicle look and instead an appearance that’s almost people-carrier-ish.
All very nice, but in this specification the Transit Connect PHEV FlexCab Active is getting on for €45,000, before VAT is added on top. So it’s by no means a cheap way into a compact van, if that’s what your business needs. A plainer, L1 Van version of the Connect starts from €28,000 ex-VAT, so it will make more sense for companies which have no need of the FlexCab’s rear row of seating.
Ford Transit Connect interior
If you get the chance to sit in all the four lines of the Transit family in short order, for some reason – maybe you’re at a commercial vehicle show or you’re checking them all out in a showroom to see which size of Transit suits you best – then you might subtly notice that the Connect’s cabin feels different to all of the interiors of the Courier, Custom and full-sized, big-boy Transit. And that’s because the Connect is the only one of the four Transits which isn’t Ford’s own work. In fact, it’s a lightly reskinned Volkswagen Caddy, another of the many ‘product shares’ that are going on between these two giants of the automotive world right now.
So whereas in some instances of the commercial vehicles, you can tell that Ford did the groundwork and VW laid its own trimmings on top – the current Volkswagen Amarok pick-up and Transporter van being great examples, as they’re based on the Blue Oval’s Ranger and Transit Custom respectively – for the Connect the relationship is flipped. Even the ignition key on the Transit Connect is clearly a VW item, albeit one with a Ford logo hastily applied where the German firm’s roundel would normally be.
This is not necessarily, in and of itself, a bad thing, because as you’d expect of Volkswagen interiors, the cabin quality, technology and design is very pleasant – indeed, almost car-like in its opulence. There’s a big touchscreen for the infotainment, a clear digital instrument cluster for the driver, and a general ergonomic correctness that ought to make this an incredibly easy van to live with.
The problem, however, is that the Connect (and, by extension, the Caddy) has the slightly older VW human-machine interface… which means its climate ‘sliders’ aren’t backlit at night, while the menu layout of the infotainment is nothing like as intuitive or easy to operate as the ‘proper’ SYNC 4 systems you’d find in the other three types of Transit. For instance, switching off the speed limit warning and lane-keep assist on the Courier, Custom and top Transit is the work of a few moments – you press and hold the ‘limit’ button on the steering wheel to deactivate the former, then give the lane-keep assist icon elsewhere on the wheel two taps to turn that overseer off.
In the Connect, though, you have to press the safety assist button (kind of like a car shape surrounded by four brackets) down on the dash first, then tap at the touchscreen above a number of times to turn off the systems and confirm that, yes, you really do want them deactivated. It’s a minor annoyance, maybe, but if you’re doing this every single day, you’ll soon realise the Ford interface is just better because it better lets you keep your eyes on the road, or even get moving that bit quicker each time you start the van up. In its defence, at least the Connect has physical buttons on the steering wheel, rather than VW’s horrid haptic touchpads.
The star of the Connect’s interior, then, comes in the back of this clever FlexCab model. It has a second row of seats here, complete with a trio of three-point seatbelts, but this is not a ‘Double Cab in Van’ with a fixed bench in the back; oh no. Instead, pull one of the fabric loops on the sides of the rear seats and, if you’re reasonably strong, with one hand you can fold-and-pull the whole bench forwards and upwards before simply popping a retaining clip over a roof-mounted bar behind the seats, which instantly converts the Transit Connect FlexCab into a two-seater van with a rear cargo area of 3.1 cubic metres. It’s a really neat touch and it means the FlexCab can be a pseudo-MPV with a massive ‘boot area’ on the one hand, or a proper compact panel van on the other.
Ford Transit Connect driving experience
If you’ve driven any Volkswagen Group PHEV, commercial or passenger, in recent years, then you are highly likely to have come across the powertrain installed in the Ford Transit Connect PHEV. It’s formed of a 1.5-litre TSI four-cylinder turbo petrol engine and an electric motor with enough torque on its own (330Nm) that the Connect can travel at motorway speeds without using its internal-combustion unit at all. The combined drivetrain outputs here are 150hp and 350Nm, solid numbers that make the PHEV more powerful than just the ‘plain’ turbodiesel models that are offered elsewhere in the Connect’s range.
Most impressively, the Transit Connect PHEV has a relatively large 19.7kWh battery, which gives this van a three-figure claimed electric-only driving range (119km, to be specific) and the sort of on-paper economy/CO2 stats that should keep any decarbonising commercial fleet manager happy. Even better, the Transit Connect is one of the few PHEVs, to this day, which can charge on a rapid DC current rather than just AC, so it will top its battery back up to 80 per cent in less than 30 minutes on the right connection.
Even its slowest 7kW AC speed will see the battery completely replenished in three hours 50 minutes, meaning minimal downtime for this van while it charges and also a better chance of getting diesel-beating fuel economy returns – if perhaps never quite attaining the eye-opening quoted figure of 0.5 litres/100km (565mpg). As an example, on a short but moderately quick-driven test route, we saw 3.2 litres/100km from the powertrain, which is 88.3mpg.
Beyond that, it’s a fairly smooth and inoffensive PHEV. Power goes to the front wheels alone through a six-speed dual-clutch transmission, which is perfectly fine. The transition from pure electric to hybrid running is acceptable enough too, if a little clunky at times, and if you decide to rev the engine out then the 1.5 petrol gets a little noisy. But with 350Nm on offer, you really don’t need to thrash the Transit Connect PHEV to make progress, and in general, it handles, rides and rolls along in a refined manner that’s still quite some way in advance of the raucous way diesel commercials used to only a few years back. Also, with a combined range in the region of 500km, the Connect PHEV is ideal for businesses that can’t yet rely on the shorter range of fully electric vans, so it has a lot going for it as a fleet machine.
Alternatives to the Ford Transit Connect
The obvious one is the Volkswagen Caddy PHEV, although the source material is not listed on VW’s commercial vehicles site in Ireland – your choice here is apparently diesel only. There are, in fact, far fewer PHEV vans than there are electric ones (the bigger Transit Custom is one of the few part-electric alternatives out there) on the market, so with the smaller Transit Courier growing in size and offering an all-electric variant, it’s possible that the e-Transit Courier might be a better fit for your needs than the Connect PHEV. Whichever way you look at it, the combination of the plug-in hybrid drivetrain, the compact bodywork and that clever FlexCab set-up gives the Transit Connect PHEV a specific make-up that could be spot on for certain end users.
Our verdict on the Ford Transit Connect
Although its Volkswagen underpinnings are a little obvious in places – and sometimes frustratingly so, certainly when it comes to the human-machine interface – the Ford Transit Connect PHEV FlexCab remains a solid panel-van effort. There are so few plug-in hybrid commercials in the first place, which gives it an edge from the start, and then the particularly ingenious second row of seating blesses the Blue Oval’s van with an interior versatility that is presently unmatched.
Those two aspects of its character alone will be more than enough to convince many business users and fleet managers of its merits, of course, but we also cannot ignore the fact that – as tested – this specific configuration of the PHEV, the L2 body, the FlexCab interior and the Active specification leads to a very high initial ticket, while the arrival of the excellent, all-electric e-Transit Courier might just make this petrol-electric Connect look like a compromise too far. If you need a long-range compact van, this Transit Connect PHEV is probably the ideal choice right now. If you don’t, then one of Ford’s superb zero-emission commercials will serve you better.