At an event billed as its “next Model T moment,” Ford Motor Co. earlier this week unveiled its strategy, aiming to take a revolutionary leap forward in engineering and manufacturing to bring a new family of affordable and high-quality electric vehicles (EVs) within reach for millions around the world. The company expects the new Ford Universal EV Platform and Ford Universal EV Production System, developed by its California-based electric vehicle hardware and software skunkworks, to result in a simple, efficient, and flexible ecosystem that delivers a family of affordable, electric, software-defined vehicles.

The first model set for launch in 2027 for U.S. and export markets will be a midsize, four-door electric pickup assembled at the Louisville Assembly Plant, where the event was held.

“We took a radical approach to a very hard challenge: create affordable vehicles that delight customers in every way that matters—design, innovation, flexibility, space, driving pleasure, and cost of ownership—and do it with American workers,” said Ford President and CEO Jim Farley.

He said the effort had to avoid the “good college tries” by Detroit automakers to make affordable vehicles that end up with idled plants, layoffs, and uncertainty, and had to be a strong, sustainable, and profitable business.

“From Day 1, we knew there was no incremental path to success,” added Farley. “We empowered a tiny skunkworks team three time zones away from Detroit. We tore up the moving assembly line concept and designed a better one. And we found a path to be the first automaker to make prismatic LFP batteries in the U.S.”

Ford is planning to invest nearly $2 billion in its Louisville Assembly Plant to assemble the midsize electric truck, securing 2200 hourly jobs. The project is supported by an incentive offer from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.

“This announcement not only represents one of the largest investments on record in our state, it also boosts Kentucky’s position at the center of EV-related innovation and solidifies Louisville Assembly Plant as an important part of Ford’s future,” said Andy Beshear, Governor of Kentucky.

The plant will expand by 52,000 ft² to move material more efficiently. Digital infrastructure upgrades will give it the fastest network with the most access points out of any Ford plant globally, enabling more quality scans.

Ford’s investment in the Louisville Assembly Plant is in addition to its previously announced $3 billion investment in BlueOval Battery Park Michigan, which will build the prismatic LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries for the midsize electric truck starting next year. Together, the investment “bet” totals about $5 billion, and Ford expects to create or secure nearly 4000 direct jobs while strengthening the domestic supply chain with dozens of new U.S.-based suppliers.

Farley calls it a bet worth taking, but says there are no guarantees with this project.

“We’re doing so many new things,” said Farley. “I can’t tell you with a hundred percent certainty that this will all go just right. It is a bet. There is risk. We’re taking the fight to our competition, including the Chinese, with teams across the United States, designers from California, engineers from Michigan, American workers right here in Louisville.”

 

The program

Three years ago, Ford management empowered a small skunkworks group in Long Beach, CA, with a tenth of the people they would normally hire to do this kind of work.

The team took inspiration from the Model T—”the universal car that changed the world,” said Doug Field, Ford’s Chief EV, Digital and Design Officer, and famously and formerly of Apple and Tesla. “To ensure focus, Ford made sure the entire team was in one building in California. Decisions were made quickly. We wouldn’t have gotten this far with this much innovation otherwise.”

He assembled a “brilliant collection of minds” from Ford and externally, unleashing them to find new solutions to old problems. One of the other key external hires was Alan Clarke, Executive Director, Advanced Electric Vehicle Development, who also worked at Tesla for 12.5 years, his last position being Director of New Programs Engineering.

“Developing this affordable EV architecture has been the biggest challenge of my career, but it also gives us the profound opportunity to set Ford up for success in the next 120 years,” said Clarke.

Field and crew kept the project secret to shield it from well-intended, but sometimes disruptive, corporate oversight.

“We gave the team access to everything that Ford offers, but we also gave them permission to question everything from old obsolete requirements,” said Field. “One of our mantras was simple: the best part is no part.”

One upgrade was a new computer-aided design system, so the engineers could see their part every day at the beginning of the day in the entire assembly to maintain “systems thinking.”

“We applied first‑principles engineering, pushing to the limits of physics to make it fun to drive and compete on affordability,” said Field. “Our new zonal electric architecture unlocks capabilities the industry has never seen. This isn’t a stripped‑down, old‑school vehicle.”

Farley said the truck “will be fully connected with a brand-new digital experience no one’s seen in our country. It will offer, for the first time, fast charging. It will have an amazing range. It can power your house for six days. You don’t need a generator; you just buy this truck. And we’re going to start the vehicle at $30,000.”

 

The platform and truck

With all the recent negative press about EV sales growth headwinds in the U.S., Field provided a strong defense for why Ford’s Universal Vehicle is an EV.

“It enabled a lot of the revolution that you’re going to see in the assembly,” he said. “But, we also believe EVs are the best product by far for the customers we’re going after. You charge it at home, it’s always ready in the morning, and you never visit a gas station, and it has incredibly low maintenance. It’s a surprising experience once you own one, and it’s really fun.”

He pointed to its low center of gravity due to the heavy battery in the floor, instant torque from the electric motors, and the “obsessive chassis engineering by our Ford team” in making it “unbelievable to drive.” And “it’s more than a truck, it’s a mobile powerplant.” Outlets in the rear can give you high power and let you plug in anything from tools to a refrigerator, and it can provide backup power for your home.

For owners, it’s affordable at the beginning and over time, beating the cost of over five years for a three-year-old used Tesla Model Y, he said.

Ford provided no images of the truck and said most specifications will come later. However, the company did reveal some interesting platform details.

Compared to a typical vehicle’s underpinnings, the Ford Universal EV Platform is said to reduce parts by 20% versus a typical vehicle, with 25% fewer fasteners, 40% fewer workstations dock-to-dock in the plant, and 15% faster assembly time.

In the digital space, the truck will have a “ground up” zonal architecture with a wiring harness more than 4000 ft (1300 m) shorter and 10 kg (22 lb) lighter than the one used in Ford’s first-gen electric SUV.

“It doesn’t just cut those 4,000 feet of wires out,” he added. “It’s going to have features that the industry has never seen. It’ll start with things like Blue Cruise, which customers are already really finding transformative for their daily travel.”

The biggest factor that affects the cost of an electric vehicle is batteries, according to Akshaya Srinivasan, Senior Manager, Range, Performance, and Charging, at Ford.

“Reducing the size of the battery makes its way into every other part of the vehicle and allows us to make a lot of cost gains,” she said. “It also serves as the floor, which means better ride, isolation from road noise, and better handling. This allows for a much better fun-to-drive experience for the customer.”

The reduced battery size means that the drive units and other related subsystems are much smaller, so for the same-sized vehicle exterior, there can be more space inside. According to Clarke, the powertrain can go in the front or the back to give customers more room, and ultimately, it makes a better vehicle.

The new midsize truck is expected to have more passenger room than the latest Toyota RAV4, along with cargo room in the frunk and truck bed.

The platform, with a low center of gravity from the battery, instant torque from electric motors, and “obsessive” chassis engineering, will make it fun to drive. The midsize truck will have a targeted 0-60 mph acceleration time as fast as that of a Mustang EcoBoost.

 

The production system

The team obsessed about efficiency in manufacturing, transforming the traditional assembly line into an “assembly tree” for the new Ford Universal EV Production System. Instead of one long conveyor, three sub-assemblies run down their lines simultaneously and then join.

Parts travel down the assembly tree to operators in a kit. Within that kit, all fasteners, scanners, and power tools required for the job are included, and in the correct orientation for use.

Large single-piece aluminum “unicastings” replace dozens of smaller parts, enabling the front and rear of the vehicle to be assembled separately as pioneered by Tesla and now others. The front and rear are then combined with the third sub-assembly, the structural battery, which is independently assembled with seats, consoles, and carpeting, to form the vehicle.

“To pull this off, we had to make a lot of new investments,” said Field. “The large aluminum unicastings come from new machines and new processes.”

“We put our employees at the center and re-created the factory from scratch,” said Bryce Currie, Ford Vice President, Americas Manufacturing. “We live and breathe continuous improvement, but sometimes you need a dramatic leap forward. We expect ergonomic breakthroughs and complexity reduction— through elimination of parts, connectors, and wire—will flow through to significant quality and cost wins.”

The Ford Universal EV Production System dramatically improves ergonomics for employees by reducing twisting, reaching, and bending, allowing them to focus more on the job.

“You will never put an instrument panel or a seat through a door opening again,” said Field, addressing the Louisville assemblers. “This way of building a vehicle, we’re confident, is the first time anyone’s done this anywhere in the world. So, this will be a very special place.”

Because of the integration between the Ford Universal EV Production System and Platform, assembly of the midsize electric truck could be up to 40% faster than the Louisville Assembly Plant’s current vehicles. Some of that time will be reinvested into insourcing and automation to improve quality and cost, ultimately netting a 15% speed improvement.