No More Small Cargo Vans in Canada After 2023
Automakers are not just abandoning small cars. Following the 2023 model year, there won’t be any small cargo van left in Canada.
We’ve known since last year that the Ford Transit Connect wouldn’t return, but it’s only this week that the Blue Oval company confirmed the news.
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A statement sent to Automotive News explains the Transit Connect’s discontinuation as the result of “efforts to reduce global manufacturing cost and complexity, alongside decreased demand for the compact van segment.”
In North America, Ford will move forward exclusively with the full-size Transit, which is available in many more configurations as well as a fully electric variant called e-Transit. Last year, the Transit outsold the Transit Connect almost 10-to-1 in Canada.
A similar fate awaits the Mercedes-Benz Metris, which won’t be back for 2024. The German manufacturer prefers to focus on the much more popular Sprinter which, as we reported recently, will join the e-Transit this summer with a battery-powered alternative called eSprinter.
Ram retired the ProMaster City van at the end of the 2022 model year. Two years before that, Nissan axed the NV200. Chevrolet did the same with the City Express back in 2018.