Ford is promising to ship an EV truck subsequent yr that begins at $30,000 and might compete with Chinese language automakers with out undermining revenue margins. A mix of 3D-printed Lego-like components, Components 1 considering, and a bounty program will assist the corporate hit that focus on, Ford mentioned Tuesday.
It must. Ford took a $19.5 billion hit in December and ended manufacturing of its battery-electric F-150 Lightning. It will probably’t afford for this new EV enterprise technique to fall flat.
Ford’s guess on a line of inexpensive EVs started a number of years in the past with a skunkworks staff led by Alan Clarke, a 12-year Tesla veteran. Items of its plan have been revealed final August, when Ford mentioned it could ditch its conventional shifting meeting line and make investments $2 billion in its Louisville manufacturing facility to undertake a brand new manufacturing system that guarantees to hurry up manufacturing by 15%.
The corporate mentioned on the time that its line of EVs could be constructed on a common platform with single-piece aluminum unicastings — massive parts forged as one piece to eradicate components and permit for sooner meeting — and lithium iron phosphate batteries with tech licensed from China’s CATL.
Now Ford is sharing extra specifics in a flurry of blog and social media posts on the way it will fulfill its promise of a fascinating EV truck that will likely be $20,000 cheaper than the typical new automobile whereas nonetheless producing earnings. Ford didn’t share specs just like the vary, options, or charging occasions of this future EV. Nevertheless it did reveal the way it plans to construct lighter, cheaper, extra environment friendly EVs made with fewer components.
All of it begins with the common EV platform, or UEV. The platform will underpin a midsized truck first, then might help a sedan, crossover, three-row SUV, and even small business vans, in keeping with Clarke. The UEV is Ford’s first “clear sheet” EV constructed from the bottom up — a strategic shift for the corporate, which constructed its Mustang Mach-E and the Lightning EVs utilizing present infrastructure and manufacturing practices.
“It’s a platform that’s constructed round effectivity,” Clarke mentioned in a briefing with the media. “It’s constructed round affordability to have the ability to make long-range electrical automobile journey inexpensive to extra folks.”
Techcrunch occasion
Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026
To attain that, Clarke got down to create a brand new tradition seeded by expertise from Components 1 and corporations like Apple, Lucid Motors, Rivian, and Tesla, in addition to Auto Motive Energy, a startup acquired by Ford in 2023. The staff, which incorporates about 450 folks at its base in Lengthy Seaside, California, and 200 folks in an workplace in Palo Alto, additionally adopted a bounty program to assist engineers perceive how their day-to-day selections impression the shopper and the tip product, Clarke mentioned in an interview with reporters.
The main target of the bounty program was effectivity. Numerical metrics have been assigned to each facet of the UEV, together with automobile mass, aerodynamic drag, and even particular automobile components. In apply, this meant Ford would possibly determine to make use of a dearer half if it helped lower the burden of the EV, thereby making it extra environment friendly and cost-effective.
“We’ve been very targeted on ensuring that the fee that we’re shifting from the product doesn’t take away worth,” Clarke mentioned. One instance is that even the bottom trim of the EV truck can have a power-folding mirror, a premium function on most automobiles, as a result of it decreases aerodynamic drag, in keeping with Clarke. The corporate saved cash by utilizing one motor, as a substitute of two, to deal with the mirror adjustment and the folding.
That obsession with effectivity included a staff of ex-Components 1 engineers who labored intently with Ford’s design staff. The consequence, in keeping with Ford, is a midsized EV truck that’s 15% extra aerodynamically environment friendly than another pickup truck in the marketplace right this moment.
This staff of former F1 engineers used 3D-printed and machined components to create a Lego-like construct for its check automobile. Hundreds of 3D-printed parts, that are correct inside fractions of a millimeter of Ford’s simulations and might be swapped out in minutes, have been used to measure aerodynamics. These Lego-like prototypes have been utilized in wind tunnel testing early on — and sometimes — to measure aerodynamics, a course of that Ford historically used solely when the design of a automobile was practically full.
A pure place to focus was on the battery, which may account for about 40% of a automobile’s whole expense. A lighter, extra environment friendly automobile permits Ford to make use of a smaller battery, which reduces value. The top consequence, in keeping with Clarke, will likely be an EV truck with about 15% extra vary, or 50 miles, than an equal pickup powered by fuel.
The effectivity push additionally led the staff to undertake manufacturing ways adopted and popularized by Tesla, together with the usage of aluminum unicastings and shifting from a 12-volt system to a 48-volt energy system that will likely be used for some automobile capabilities.
Ford additionally upended the electrical automobile structure of the UEV, taking a zonal method just like Tesla and Rivian. As a substitute of scattering dozens of digital management models (ECUs), or computer systems, all through the automobile, Ford has built-in a number of automobile capabilities into 5 important modules. This reduces complexity, value, and copper utilization and helped make the EV truck’s wire harness 4,000 ft shorter and 22 kilos lighter than considered one of its first-generation electrical automobiles, in keeping with Luccas Di Tullio, a software program engineer at Ford who beforehand labored at Auto Motive Energy.
Di Tullio mentioned the corporate carried the identical philosophy to the facility digital parts, discovering methods to share parts and cut back components with a single module that manages energy distribution and battery administration and supplies AC energy again to a buyer’s dwelling throughout an outage.
Ford additionally developed its personal software program for these 5 important ECUs, right down to the applying layer, in keeping with Clarke. As a result of Ford owns the software program — to the bottom stage — it turns into very transportable, Clarke mentioned.
“Aside from having the ability to management the infotainment, what exhibits up on the screens, [and] the way you work together with the automobile, all the physique controls then are immediately coupled,” he mentioned. “So you may think about that lots of the experiences that may solely be created by coupling all of the completely different sensors across the automobile are actually at our fingertips and below our personal management.”
