Demand for EVs may be in a state of flux right now, especially in the US, but Ford is still betting big on electric cars in its home market. It’s just announced a new EV-only platform that’ll underpin a range of new, more affordable EVs to be built at its Louisville, Kentucky plant, and it’s got big ambitions for it, calling it a second ‘Model T moment’ for the company. No pressure then.
Called the Universal EV platform, it’s being developed to be the basis for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks, with the company promising that everything that sits on it will be affordable as well as “highly efficient, customisable and fun to drive.”
Ford Universal EV platform announcement
Ford’s even come up with a new production process for the platform. The front and rear ends of the cars will be assembled on separate lines, with a third line handling the battery and structure to which the bones of the interior will be mated. All three separate branches will then be united at the end of the production process. This, says Ford, will be faster, more space efficient, safer and less physically taxing for assembly line workers.
As for the cars that’ll sit on the platform, the first to be confirmed is a compact pickup truck, set to arrive in 2027 and cost under $30,000 (approx. £22,300) in its home market. Once again, the company’s talking a big game with it, promising it’ll have better interior space than an outgoing Toyota RAV4 and accelerate quicker than a four-cylinder Mustang. Meanwhile, a series of silhouettes shown off by the company hint at other vehicles that could sit on the Universal EV bones, ranging from hatchbacks to compact vans to three-row SUVs.
Ford CEO Jim Farley
Ford’s promising these cars, including their battery packs, will be entirely American-built, and it’s pouring some $5 billion (approx. £3.7 billion) into the Louisville plant for their manufacture. It’s likely, though, that some of them will be sold globally, with Ford CEO Jim Farley saying the platform will come “from Kentucky to the world” during his presentation.
That means we could see the platform used to expand Ford’s European EV offerings, which currently consist of the Mustang Mach-E, the Volkswagen-based Explorer and Capri and the Puma Gen-E, essentially a regular Puma with a battery pack shoehorned in. We’ll likely find out a whole lot more ahead of the launch of that compact pickup the year after next.
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