That's the "chicken tax" mentioned in the article.
No, I don't think so, to quote the article ...
the U.S. still hits delivery vans imported from overseas with a 25% tariff. .....
The company's wiggle room comes from the process of defining a delivery van. Customs officials check a bunch of features to determine whether a vehicle's primary purpose might be to move people instead. Since cargo doesn't need seats with seat belts or to look out the window, those items are on the list. So Ford ships all its Transit Connects with both, calls them "wagons" instead of "commercial vans." Installing and removing unneeded seats and windows costs the company hundreds of dollars per van, but the import tax falls dramatically, to 2.5 percent, saving thousands.
Looks to me that they ship them as "passenger vans" to avoid the "chicken tax" and keeping them as passenger vans does not impose a "chicken tax"
About the oranges & apples:
The "wagon" version comes in with an actual, usable seat, full carpeting, a headliner, and plastic panels covering the painted steel walls.
That may be true, the article says
,but I believe the metal exterior panels to cover the window holes, a new floor panel and all the labor and disposal cost at least as much as any interior decor. Even exchanging the seat, considering the price difference, they seem a lot more like two slightly different varieties of an "apple", or at most one apple is painted orange. Wouldn't it be interesting to see the actual cost numbers?"On a recent afternoon, a handful of vans passed through the warehouse unmolested as passenger wagons."