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Drive Car of the Year the Australian Ranger
from VTE March 2023
by Possprint
Ford’s Ranger 4x4 dual-cab ute is the overall winner of the 2023 Drive Car of the Year awards, a first for any LCV.
Ranger topped the voting among 13 DCOTY category winners that were eligible for the outright award.
Last year 4x4 utes made up 18 percent of total new vehicle sales and nearly 13 percent of all private sales.
Ford Australia designed and engineered the global Ranger (and its SUV partner, Everest), which is now offered in upward of 180 markets. The car, developed with our local roads, climate, and driving conditions in mind, was the result of work conducted by Ford’s design and engineering teams in Melbourne and Geelong. It was significantly tested at the Ford Proving Grounds just outside of Melbourne and in the Victorian High Country and South Australian desert.
It’s not just the Ranger and Everest either, as
Australia remains a global development hub for Ford. The local team sees more than 2300 personnel working on cars predominantly for China, India, and South American markets. So, while Australian market Rangers may be built in Thailand, in nearly every other way, this is an Australian car.
The Ranger’s win isn’t the first Drive Car of the Year overall winner award on the Ford mantlepiece either, with the previous generation Ford Everest SUV securing top honours in 2015.
SEA to electrify Hilux and LandCruisers for mining
SEA Electric has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with MEVCO, a leading systems integrator focused exclusively on electric light commercial vehicles within the mining industry.
The partnership will see specialist all-electric Hilux and LandCruiser models made available for the mining industry, with MEVCO making a commitment to order 8,500 units over the next five years.
The deal has a total value of close to $1 billion. At the heart of the arrangement is SEA Electric’s proprietary SEA-Drive power-system. Thanks to its medium voltage architecture and electronic thermal management, SEA Electric’s solution is light, cost effective, and efficient, with the system tested in the field across eight countries with over 2.5 million kilometres of real-world use registered to date.
Available in various mining-specific designs for 4x4 and 4x2 configurations, the vehicles can be
