This is Ford’s new entry-priced car, starting at €33,000. That’s a long way from the days when Ford’s car model line-up began with the little Ka and grew to the Galaxy. A mass culling has left it with just a handful of cars – and has left former customers perusing the forecourts of rival brands.
Can the Puma deliver for the new generation of Fiesta and former Puma owners?
Its styling is smart and even quite cute. Its EV range, at 376km, is adequate for a customer base largely focused on shopping and school runs. And it handles as well as the rest of this small crossover cohort.
Like many EVs, there’s an element of point and click about the engagement with the driver, but it never feels like a struggle – even climbing twisting mountain roads or the sort of hills that leave cyclists dismounting for a breather.
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Power delivery is smooth. There’s a one-pedal drive set-up that isn’t too grippy, while the brakes are progressive – avoiding the too soft or overly aggressive traits of many EVs these days.
But for all that, the Puma struggles to stand out from the crowd.
Take its performance. A 0-100km/h time of eight seconds isn’t slow, but in the age of electric it’s rather sedate, and even in sport mode it lacks the sort of pep you’d like when overtaking, for example.
Trading acceleration for range is common practice, but if you give up on performance you expect better range than is being delivered here.
That said, by matching the 123.5kW electric motor with a lithium-ion NMC battery pack with 43kWh of usable capacity in this Puma, Ford claims drivers can average as low as 13.1kWh/100km in everyday driving, and even get 523km of range in city driving.
Despite initial cynicism, over a range of road conditions, including some challenging hills, we managed to achieve averages of 15kWh/100km, and even got it as low as 10kWh/100km for a 48km drive on rural and suburban roads.
Ford has a decent chassis under this car, and it handles well, but its engineers should get their hands on BMW’s X1 and see how it manages to be both nimble and entertaining, with the star of its show the innovative Boost button.
BMW’s ‘Boost’ button is one of my favourite features from the last five years, instigating Sport mode and settings for 10 seconds before automatically returning to normality. It means you don’t have to fiddle through menus or settings to get some extra power when you need it, nor are you stuck in Sports mode after it’s no longer required. The sooner others come up with similar one-touch options, the better.
But back to Ford – and one of the biggest boasts about Puma is its storage, claiming to deliver best in class. The trick in what initially looks like a tight boot is a movable floor. First, it drops down to give extra depth before lifting up to reveal a 65-litre “gigabox”.
In layman’s terms, this is a large hole basin the size of a big Belfast sink, lined with hard plastic and with a plug hole in case you need to wash it out, or transport live fish. You could easily keep several laptops – even a desktop PC – stowed away down there from prying eyes. Ford’s Tetris-mastering engineers even demonstrate the space by loading luggage, a double pram and a picnic table and chairs into the Puma’s boot.
When this generous cubbyhole is combined with the above floor space and the ‘frunk’ under the bonnet, you get a grand total of 574 litres: that’s more than you have in many full-sized family saloons. Fold down the seats and the full expansion is 1,283 litres. The only issue is with the shape of all that space. While the boot is certainly deep, the gap between boot door and back seats means any bulky items or luggage must stand upright.
Speaking of the back seats, the good news is that there is better legroom here than in the petrol equivalent, and it can certainly accommodate two adults without them having their knees buried into the back of the front seats.
The downside of the EV set-up is that accommodating the battery pack means a high floor. The end results is a seating position where your ass is nearly level with your ankles. It’s a squat-like seating posture where you can easily sit hugging your knees. Perhaps this is a new form of Puma passenger therapy pose.
Room up front is sufficient for adults, and though it’s not as bright and colourful as some rivals, the 12.8-inch digital instrument display is clear, while the 12-inch touchscreen is useful, if not as intuitive or graphically impressive as rivals.
Pricing is on a par with rivals such as the electric Peugeot 2008, and better in some versions than its Korean rivals, the Hyundai Kona and Kia e-Niro.
After grants, the Puma starts at €32,916, rising to €35,718 for the Premium version. The extra spend delivers larger alloys (18-inch rather than 17-inch), improved lights, four extra speakers (10 instead of six); a powered bootlid and different seating fabric. There is no technical or performance differences, making the extra spend hard to justify.
While the Puma is certainly competitive and with a relatively well-established model name, it never quite manages a clear-cut lead in this crowded market.
Where it boasts lower pricing, it delivers lower range, but then some rivals don’t match its charging speed – claiming 10 per cent to 80 per cent of battery charge in 23 minutes on a fast charger putting out 100kW or more.
The problem for Ford is that having culled some of Ireland’s favourite models from its line-up, it’s now left with just a handful of cars to sell and this, at €33,000, is its entry-priced car. Is this going to work for the Fiesta and Focus cohorts? Or will they join many other former Ford buyers in migrating to other brands, particularly the Koreans with their wider choice of models and price points?
It takes time to rebuild your team, which is what Ford is doing, but the market doesn’t wait, and Ford has lost many of its loyal buyers in the interim.
The jury is out on whether they can be won back, and while the Puma will help, it would have been more useful if it had arrived ahead of the fleet of rivals already here.
Ford promises new offers and supports to back up the new Puma, like its eight-year/160,000km battery warranty and even a service that will pick you and the car up and bring you to a charging station if you run out of power.
However, the blue oval brand needs to be bolder. To stand out here and give the Puma some bite, it should offer a 10-year unlimited mileage warranty on its battery. That would reassure customers concerned about battery lifespan, while also giving future used car sellers something they can stand over to defend residual batteries.
The Puma is a much-needed addition to Ford’s limited model line-up, but it needs to be bolder if it wants to get back in the big league.
