The Ranger PHEV Turns Your Petrol Generator Into Dead Weight, and Ford Proved It
Ford Pro pitted the Ranger PHEV against a 4 kW petrol generator on its own emissions bench. The verdict was brutal — up to 9000 times less nitrogen oxide, a third of the fuel and over €1400 saved every year.
Ford has turned the petrol generator into dead weight — and it proved the point in its own lab. The Ranger Plug-in-Hybrid with Pro Power Onboard becomes a mobile power station: the energy comes from the traction battery, and the built-in 230 V sockets push out up to 6.9 kW.
That is enough for power tools, lighting, heaters and kitchen gear — or to top up a 12-volt battery. Which means the separate generator can stay home. The one that hogs space in the bed, eats into your payload and demands cans of fuel.
To back up the claim, Ford Pro set up a head-to-head. On the emissions bench at its Dunton engineering centre, the pickup went up against a typical 4 kW generator. Four loads were run — around 300, 1500, 2500 and 4000 W, from charging a drill to boiling a kettle. Everything was measured: nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and CO2.
The rout was telling. At low power the generator pumped out 15 times more nitrogen oxides, and at the peak more than 9000 times. On the Ranger PHEV those emissions dropped to nothing under heavy load, as the clean-up systems worked flat out. Carbon monoxide? The generator averaged 450 times more, peaking at 1200 times. Hydrocarbons — 15 to 110 times more.
Fuel told the same story. At operating temperature Pro Power Onboard burned half as much fuel as the generator, and with a charged battery just a third. For small businesses, Ford put the saving at more than €1400 a year — and that is with just an hour of use a day.