Ford Shifts Gears on Its Plan to Scrap Electric Pickup Trucks

Buffeted by criticism from environmentalists, Ford Motor Co. officials said Tuesday that the automaker is reconsidering a decision to scrap its last few electric Ranger pickups -- and that it erred a day earlier in saying its hand was being forced by a federal agency.

A company official said the Detroit auto giant expects a decision as early as today on the fate of the few dozen remaining Ranger pickups, part of an ambitious experiment launched with fanfare in the late 1990s but halted as the company shifted to hybrids and other alternative technologies.

“This is a very fluid situation,” said Niel Golightly, Ford’s director of sustainable business strategies. “We are taking one last look at what we’re able to do. I wish every single one of our products generated as much customer passion.”

The decision to order the return of the dozens of leased electric pickups spawned an ongoing protest in Sacramento, where a few Ranger owners launched a curbside vigil in front of a downtown Ford dealership in a last-ditch attempt to save their beloved vehicles.

“This gives us some hope,” said Dave Raboy, a Mariposa County rancher who wants to buy the electric Ranger instead of seeing it sent to the scrap yard. “I’d like them to restart their EV [electric vehicle] program, but this would definitely be a step in the right direction.”

The protest attracted statewide media attention last weekend.

A Ford spokeswoman told The Times in a story published Tuesday that the company’s decision to demand the return of all remaining electric pickup trucks came because the federal government didn’t renew a waiver needed to keep the Rangers on the road.

But on Tuesday, electric vehicle foes raised an outcry over the statement, saying the electric Ranger trucks were never subject to a federal highway safety waiver.

Ford officials quickly conceded the statement was wrong, saying it had been an honest error stemming from confusion with another electric vehicle Ford once leased. That vehicle, the golf-cart-shaped TH!NK, had indeed required a waiver of federal highway rules.

Electric vehicle advocates were less than willing to concede that the Ford spokeswoman may have been confused. Websites for electric vehicle aficionados railed against Ford, and the Rainforest Action Network, which joined Raboy in the ongoing Sacramento protest, drafted a news release accusing the company of misleading the public.

Raboy, meanwhile, was left scratching his head.

Noting that the company had initially promised to sell him the vehicle, then reversed course and demanded it back, Raboy said, “At this point, I don’t know what to believe from Ford.”

But, he added, “If they’re willing to take a new look at our situation, it certainly makes me hopeful.”