Ford Bronco Hybrid could make over 450 hp but is a ways off, report says

Make no mistake, Ford’s forthcoming body-on-frame Bronco SUV is superhot right now. Like, fury-of-a-thousand-suns hot, but people are still wondering whether they’ll enjoy some sweet, instantaneous electric torque in their Bronco on the trail or if they’ll have to bail on the Blue Oval and get the Jeep Wrangler 4xe.

According to a report published Wednesday by The Fast Lane Car, they probably shouldn’t ditch their reservations yet. See, an unnamed source close to the Bronco project confirmed that the Bronco Hybrid would likely make use of the same electrified modular transmission that is being used on the F-150 and Explorer hybrids.

Here’s why that’s cool. Because the hybrid bits are in the transmission, the folks at Ford can put it behind pretty much any engine that they want. So it’s likely that we’ll see the hybrid 10-speed paired with a V6 EcoBoost engine or some variant thereof. The Fast Lane predicts that combination (or one like it) would be good for upward of 450 horsepower, and those are Raptor-like numbers, friend. Torque output is anyone’s guess, but a similar system in the Lincoln Aviator hybrid cranks out 415 pound-feet, so we’d expect it to live in that ballpark.

Now, there is allegedly a catch that might put a damper on all this good news, and that is that the Bronco Hybrid has likely been delayed — again according to TFLC’s unnamed source — to at least 2022. Because it would seem that the American people, by and large, are not the most patient people on Earth, we suspect that this will be enough to kick some people back over to team Jeep, but those who are patient will probably be rewarded with something great.

Ford declined to comment further.