Browse Facebook Marketplace and you’ll find all kinds of gems. Old Crown Victorias, random bits of glass, and even long-lost experimental vehicles from yesteryear. Like this amazing Ford Ranger EV, for example!
General Motors gets a lot of guff for what went down with the EV1. Really, though, there’s plenty of room to tease Ford, too. Back in the late 1990s, Ford’s grand experiment was building the very first Ranger EV. The pioneering truck faced similar struggles, and the program drew to a close after five years. However, unlike GM, Ford actually listened to pushback from the EV community, and it didn’t try and destroy every last example out there.
Thus, this example survived, and lives on in East Boston, Massachusetts. Now, it can be yours for the decidedly low sum of $3,000. Let’s look at what you’re getting.
Old, Tired Electrons
I’d love to tell you that this is a clean, humming example full of zip, vim, and vigor. But it’s not! This 1999 Ford Ranger EV has just 30,000 miles on the clock, and apparently no rust. It even comes with a charger! But sadly, it does not run. It does not start. As much as an EV “starts,” anyway.
This example has a nickel-metal hydride (NiMh) battery pack, which consists of 25 individual 12-volt NiMh batteries. According to the owner, these all successfully held a charge when charged individually, but the vehicle did not hum into life with them installed nevertheless.
That means some other electrical problem is stopping it from running. It could be as simple as a bad contactor, or as complicated as a totally dead motor or battery controller. In any case, you’d be buying this as a restoration project, not a fully-operable vehicle.
What Was It Like?
It’s a shame the truck doesn’t run, because the NiMh battery was the more advanced of the two that Ford offered in the first Ranger EV. Lacking the energy density of modern lithium-ion cells, the battery only had a capacity on the order of 26 kWh or so. That was good enough for an 82-mile range, or 65 miles at highway speeds—not bad for the time. In contrast, the lead-acid battery offered by Ford was only good for 65 miles at best, only achieving that kind of distance with rock-hard tires and mindful driving.
When the truck was operational, the three-phase induction motor offered 90 horsepower—not a whole lot for a vehicle weighing anywhere from 4200 to 4,700 pounds. At full charge, the NiMH model would hit 60 mph in 17.45 seconds. That dropped to a leisurely 19.91 seconds at 20% charge. Top speed was 77 mph, dropping off to 70 mph when the battery got low.
By and large, the Ranger EV was a fairly basic conversion of the contemporary ICE-powered model. The engine was pulled out, and a battery and motor were substituted instead. It drove the rear wheels only, using a De Dion suspension, much like the EV G Wagen. Amazingly, you still got all the typical mod cons of the time, including an AM/FM radio with cassette or CD, a heater, and air conditioning. You could spec power windows and locks and keyless entry if you so desired.
Still, there are some tells that let you know the EV model isn’t a regular Ranger. Besides the obvious decal on the side, the grille also featured a flap for accessing the charge port. As old as it is, it used an early “Avcon” style port.
If you’re handy with electronics, you could almost certainly find a way to resurrect this thing. Give it a modern lithium battery pack and a modern charge port and you might even be able to smash past 100 miles of range, or beyond! You’d also be driving a piece of American automotive history.
Honestly, if I had the garage space in Boston? This one would be hard to pass up. What I’m saying is, if you take this on, let me know how you go, yeah?
Image credits: Facebook Marketplace, Geoff Shepherd – CC BY-SA 2.5
Fix Or Repair Daily EV TRASH!
That pic of the battery compartment taken out is such a clusterfuck
This should be driven off a cliff and/or put in the jaws of the crusher
I just drove my 1999 ICE Ranger from the Boston area out to my new home in Springfield, MO. This truck was bought new by my grandpa and despite being far from perfect, made the 1400 mile journey without issue. Had I known about this EV example in time, I’d have loved to check it out! These things do all you could really want from a simple truck without much else.
I have a 2000 NiMh model that works fine, I contest the 0-60 times as I think those were for the lead acid models, NiMh are down in the 13 or so range I think as about 1,000 lbs lighter.
They also use the predecessor to J1772 so I use the same home charger for mine as for my Chevy Bolt.
Trajectory EV out of California has a $20,000 kit that will get them near 300 miles of range.
I retract my contest on the 0-60! So here’s the deal, 0-50 is actually not bad, about 11 seconds, 50-60 takes a hold nother 6 count or so because this early Siemen’s motor just doesn’t have the revs to be geared lower.
I thought that EV’s were supposed to be trouble free
It’s a quarter-century old pickup with parts and batteries to match, I don’t know what you want beyond tossing in a drive-by zinger attempt.
Guilty as charged, drive by zinger attempt. Please shoot me and put this old horse out it’s misery comment police
Nah, we’ll just agree that it was uncalled for and cheap and call it a day.
Lot of people talk about how difficult EVs are to repair, but its not going to be any harder than any modern car. I bought a non-drivable Fiat 500e for $1500, then got the proper software to diagnose, and wiring diagrams. It was one single wire on the HVIL, and that was it. its been my daily for months. I imagine that ford is going to be something similar…. hours to find but a real easy fix.
I’m gonna now start shopping for broken EVs, I never thought of it this way!
Electrical gremlins are the bane of most service garages. I’d imagine that’s where some of the “difficulty” comes in, folks doing the work just aren’t trained and equipped to as quickly and easily trace and fix what is most likely an electrical issue.
The rest is down to engineering decisions made that impact reparability (Gigacastings, Rivian’s giant glued body panels, etc), and parts availability.
Once the consumer base begins to shift towards more and more EVs I think the people in the field will adapt and the “difficulty” will decrease.
Bill Ford Jr famously drove one as his daily when he was first made chairman of the company — wonder if he still has his…
There is a drivable example owned by the Gilmore collection in Kalamazoo, MI. Occasionally you will see it out at various local events.
From what I saw with LegitStreetCars Space Van revival, EV system diagnostics is a whole other circle of Hell. Sure, it was a one-off, but there’s so many idiosyncratic intermittent faults and Schrödinger’s electrical cats, it’d just…not be fun.
The one thing this has going for it is it’s probably one of the simplest EV’s out there when compared to modern EV’s. Toecutter’s idea below could probably be done by a home mechanic without programming anything.
What I remember working with a pulled motor from one was if the drive motor controller didn’t see high voltage within a ridiculously short time, it will fault. It’s a very specific time that’s buried in the manual, but it’s been +20 years since I read it. But figuring that out is a memory burned in my brain to always RTFM in detail.
A customer of ours had a Ranger EV, I don’t remember if it was the lead acid or NiMh one, but it was in pretty nice shape and a real treat to see. Don’t think I’ll ever see another in person, he sold it to someone across the country as I recall.
I might know of a working one in the Chicago area, but it’s lead acid with tired batteries. It’s a friend of a guy I race Lemons with and last I talked to him about 3 years ago he still had it. Don’t know how attached to it he is, and I believe that he bought it after it was used by the Olympics in Atlanta.
I’m going to assume the pack and charger are shot, but the drive system is functional.
Gut the AVCON and stock battery, replace with a pack of 94 CALB CA100FI 3.2V LiFePO4 cells in series and an Elcon charger, and you could have this thing back on the road for about $8k retaining the original drive system, weighing about 500 lbs less, and it will deliver another 2+ decades of usable life with the normal odds and ends and issues of an old vehicle needing to be addressed. You’d have similar range and slightly faster performance than stock.
With aeromods, ala Phil Knox’s Toyota T100 with aeroshell, you could approach 100 miles highway range.
Clicked on this article looking specifically for your take.
Could we start up a collection or a gofundme or something to get you this thing? I would love to read a series of articles about the process.
I wouldn’t have the space to keep it or the time to work on it. I barely have enough time to slowly make progress on my current projects.
There’s a company that has a kit for $20k for these that will get near 300 miles without the cap, or about $6k for a kit that’ll get it about 120 miles on a charge using more of the factory system.
Nice, I figured a bunch of LEAF modules might be a good option too. It’s nice to have some range figures, I imagine a converted older Nissan 1/4T would do similar.
I know a certain member around here that will be very interested in this, and now I may be riding along to Boston with him.
Awesome! If this was Virginia or points south I would be all over it. EVs of this era are wonderfully basic to fix, and between prismatic cells, Hawker AGM, or going full secondlife with discarded power tool pack cells there are many options to fill that big battery tray to get 300V.