2025 Ford Ranger PHEV Stormtrak review: International drive

Depending on the veracity of the 17 different answers Google gave me (thanks Gemini AI, maybe take a seat over there until you have your act together), Iceland’s capital Reykjavik is a stout 16,645km from my home base in Sydney. 

That’s a heck of a long way. Curiously, if you start at Ford’s Silverton plant in South Africa where the Ranger PHEV is made, the distances to Sydney and Reykjavik are almost identical – just over 11,000km.

So while Ford drew an 11,000km line to our own Sam Purcell, who previously got the Ranger PHEV muddy in Australia, I was plunged into streams powered by snow melt, met pure-breed Icelandic horses, and marvelled at the staggering beauty of this alien-looking landscape from behind the wheel of the Ranger PHEV.

We started out in downtown Reykjavik, a town of around 140,000 – although on the day it was closer to 160,000 with three giant cruise ships berthed in the harbour. The previous day’s weather had been a little iffy, but Friday’s dawn (at 3am) was to stunning, clear blue skies. 

Well, I say dawn... the sun set the previous evening at 11:59 pm – but it never got fully dark. Only the northern tip of Iceland, an island called Grimsey, is inside the Arctic Circle, meaning it’s the only part of the country to experience the Polar Day and Polar Night phenomena. But even down in Reykjavik the light stays for a good chunk of the summer months.

We headed out of town on Highway 1, which first took us east around the city – no traffic, even in the thick of peak hour – before turning north through Mosfellsbær and on towards Grundarhverfi. Soon we were hugging the gorgeous Hvalfjourður, a stunningly beautiful fjord, magicked up by a combination of Iceland’s volcanic origins, the way it straddles two tectonic plates, and the extreme cold of its glacial climate. And actual glaciers.

There are two massive problems driving in Iceland. The first is that there is so much to look at and all of it is unfeasibly pretty. I spent most of my time in the passenger seat with my jaw hanging open and muttering endlessly inelegant things about what I could see. Mountains tower above this fjord, seemingly enveloped in moss, except for the very top which exposed its dark volcanic rock.

The second is that these absurdly scenic things are right by the roadside, like a huge waterfall that drops into a gorge or a system of streams all coming together at one place and feeding into a perfectly still fjord, reflecting the sky and landscape, the sounds of appreciation echoing across to the other side. Progress was slow and, given we were on a schedule, not slow enough. We were, however, there to drive.

Icelandic highways have a pretty rough time of it. While not in the Arctic Circle, it’s still pretty cold in winter, but on top of that it’s harsh and repair budgets are low. If you never leave Reykjavik, you’d think it was pretty mild, with average temperature ranges of -3 to +3 degrees Celsius, but outside of town you’ll easily see -15.

The roads are coarse chip for the most part, and for once I’m going to compare them to Sydney roads without complaining. Most of the highway edges are crumbling – even the newer roads, such as the dual carriageway leading to the international airport at Keflavik – and the B-roads are covered in potholes and punctuated by what Americans call frost heaves, where a section of road has either dropped or risen, nature creating huge speed humps or dips in the road surface.

Up until this point, the Ranger had been the perfect companion. Running in EV mode, it swept along these roads, the extra weight of the battery seemingly improving its already impressive ride quality. Impressive for an unladen ute, anyway. It’s quiet, too, even with the big all-terrain boots across the noisy tarmac.

The Ranger handled the frost heaves extremely well, with the body staying in control and not feeling like it wanted to go in a different direction to the chassis. In this Stormtrak spec, the heated seats and steering wheel meant the (quite good) stereo went off and the windows came down. 

The air was incredibly clear, and on a sunny summer’s morning with temperatures rising to a giddy eight degrees Celsius, it was worth having the windows open. For around 28km, I was reasonably smug about not adding anything to the clean atmosphere.

Switching to auto EV mode, the Ranger makes its own decisions about how to best use the electricity on offer. With purely electric power, the range is quoted at 49km, but I didn’t want to drain the battery before giving it a go on some rough(er) stuff. As you’ll probably work out, we regularly rejoined the highway and acceleration was smart and effortless, and without the diesel racket of almost every other Ranger. That alone is a good reason to go the extra dollars for the PHEV.

As a refresher, the PHEV’s 2.3-litre EcoBoost petrol spins up 138kW and 411Nm; a relatively low state of tune for this very capable engine. The electric motor sandwiched between engine and 10-speed automatic gearbox produces 75kW on its own. When combined, power is 207kW and torque is a whopping 697Nm.

The battery is rather smaller than other PHEV utes on the market, with 11.8kWh on offer. This is obviously the subject of much debate among the PHEV ute aficionados who now have three whole models to argue over. Charging is at a relatively modest 3.5kW, meaning at best the battery takes just over three hours to charge and more likely four to six hours.

It may lag behind some capabilities offered by other PHEV dual-cab utes, such as the GWM Cannon Alpha or the BYD Shark 6. It is, however, worth pointing out the Ranger’s superior payload over the larger-batteried machines, lower kerb weight and higher ICE engine torque for those looking to tow or carry big things.

That payload figure is aided and abetted by the absence of a full-size spare (which can be had as a no-cost option) and is down significantly in the Stormtrak, the car I drove for the day. The Stormtrak is based on the Wildtrak, is (allegedly) a limited launch edition, and is full of heavy options like the metal roller cover for the tray and the flexible rack system, all for $86,990 before on-roads.

Apart from that, the additional cost goes to cosmetic improvements, two exclusive colours and Stormtrak logos inside and out.

Our third – or was it fourth – distraction came at the Þórufoss (or Thorufoss) waterfall, famous for being used as a filming location in Game of Thrones (yes, I Googled it) but more famous for being breathtakingly beautiful. A stunning 18-metre waterfall, it’s right there on the side of the road, just minding its own business. You just pull over and walk in to have a look. You won’t see a dragon swooping down and swallowing a goat, or at least I hope not.

Powering on to breakfast, we climbed up the side of a mountain and then down into a gorgeous green valley at Kjósarhreppur. Cradled between two mountains, Icelandic horses roamed and we got to try out the Ranger’s Pro Power Onboard vehicle-to-load package with a couple of power saws and tow a huge load of wrapped hay. The horses kept their distance.

While the German and Italian influencers got themselves bogged as they pretended to shoot video, I had a poke around the Ranger’s cabin. For a ute it remains easily the nicest I’ve been in, and that includes the blinged-up GWM Cannon Alpha. I’m not sold on an off-road-focussed machine having slippy leather seats, though, and can’t help thinking a cloth/leather or fake suede/leather mix would be more helpful for hanging on.

Also helpful in a near-$90,000 car would be power adjustment for both front seats. I shared the day in the car with a height difference of nearly a foot (around 30cm for the whippersnappers) between my co-driver and I. Thankfully Australian-bound versions of the Ranger PHEV get this feature.

As ever, there is plenty of adjustment of seat and steering wheel so both of us sharing the car were comfortable. Vision out is good, but we didn’t have the opportunity of a typical Iceland day, which includes very low skies to see if it made a difference. Given we were driving the Chill Grey coloured car, I was thankful for the bright sunshine as I’m quite certain even a vehicle this big would be lost in the mist.

After breakfast we drove on some more of Iceland’s notoriously busted-up roads. Having had some time to think it over, the Ranger’s on-road manners continued to impress. We then turned off for some guided off-roading.

Not going to lie, the Ranger fairly flattened what was on offer, which obviously had to cater to a wide range of driving styles (see previous comment about influencers). It wasn’t Tesla Cybertrucker-on-Instagram-“reinventing”-off-roading easy, but the car shrugged off the ever-deepening streams we crossed, with barely any slip from all-terrain tyres on the loose gravel beds.

We worked our way over some mild obstacles and switched into 4L and mud/ruts mode to tackle a mountain with a 23-degree incline. It wasn’t a tricky climb, but again the Ranger convoy just drove up the side of the mountain and to the top where we could survey Reykjavik to the west and the Hengill volcano in front of us.

After a long stop to really take in the view and watch the tourist helicopter swooping around, we crawled back down in hill descent mode. And then, as if to finish us off, we drove alongside a bunch of pipes carrying steam from deep beneath the ground, where it would end up either spinning turbines or heating buildings.

Right then it occurred to me that these Rangers were the only volcano-powered ones in existence, at least on the day. Iceland’s power generation relies almost entirely on renewable energy, including the violent power of geothermal. Around 90 per cent of household heating and a third of electricity comes from 10km below the ground. 

A network of pipes delivers steam for heating – meaning no actual electricity is used to heat homes and businesses – as well as turbines to supplement electricity generation from hydroelectric plants.

The geothermal domes that dot the landscape really hammer home the idea that the landscape is unique and not of this world, as though they called in Ridley Scott’s production designer to add the sci-fi vibe to the mix.

The Ranger PHEV performed really well across the day, dealing with everything thrown at it by the Australian contingent, as well as some less than circumspect Insta heroes who were giggling about how much air they got on the drive out from the geothermal plants.

It did leave me pondering how successful the balance of technical specification Ford has chosen will work out on a global scale. It’s sometimes incredibly useful to drive a car engineered in Australia by Australians for a global market to see how the ideas work in very different settings. 

For Icelanders – and Europeans in general – where the roads are big enough, this ute will make sense. For the colder climates, the engine is there should it be just too cold for the battery to be of any use, but it won’t be so heavy it sinks through the snow. It fit in among the surprisingly varied fleet of Iceland’s roads, where I spotted a Dodge Viper (fuelled at $4/litre), an immaculate Falcon Futura coupe, and a gaggle of Echo-era Toyota Yarises as well as full-size American trucks like the Ram and F-150.

For Europeans, the EV capability will get them around low-emission-zone rules in towns and cities, as well as delivering the low CO2 number legislators – and tax offices – use to reduce emissions.

In Australia, where the XLT is most likely going to find homes in fleets and the Wildtrak/Stormtrak fleets in homes, it will work out for the daily commute as well as the camping/work adventures. Heck, it’ll run an electric blanket in your tent on cold nights or a little air-con unit in the heat. Or a few important home appliances in a blackout.

And when the battery runs out, the EcoBoost becomes a generator and will keep you moving at a decent rate if you’re towing, something the smaller-engined competition might struggle with.

I’m not normally a ute guy, but in Iceland, it was perfect – I could see over the Armco to sights I perhaps might have missed, and it handled the frost and snow-ravaged tarmac and loose gravel off-road. My co-pilot and I were more than a little tempted to do a runner to explore more of this incredible island.