Ford Motor Co. on Tuesday announced plans to launch an electric pickup truck next year that will start at just $30,000, aiming to compete with Chinese automakers without sacrificing profit margins. To achieve this challenging goal, Ford employed a unique combination of strategies: development with Lego-like 3D-printed parts, design thinking from Formula 1, and an internal “bounty program” designed to drive efficiencies.
The strategy is critical for Ford after it took a massive $19.5 billion financial hit in December and ended production of its F-150 Lightning battery-electric pickup truck, so this new EV business strategy cannot be missed.
Ford's bet on affordable electric vehicles began several years ago with a "Skunk Works" team led by Tesla veteran Alan Clarke. The team currently has about 450 employees in Long Beach, Calif., and another 200 in Palo Alto. Ford revealed part of its plans last August, announcing it would ditch traditional moving assembly lines and invest $2 billion in a new production system at its Louisville plant. Now, Ford is revealing more details via its blog and social media, explaining how it can build an electric truck that's $20,000 cheaper than the average new vehicle while maintaining profits. Although Ford has not announced specific parameters such as driving range or charging time, its core strategy is to create lighter, cheaper and more efficient electric vehicles by reducing the number of parts.
The cornerstone of this plan is the new Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) platform. According to Clarke, the platform will first be used in mid-size pickup trucks and can later be expanded to support sedans, crossovers, three-row SUVs and even small commercial vans. The UEV is Ford's first "all-new" electric platform designed from the ground up, a departure from previous efforts to build the Mustang Mach-E and Lightning based on existing architecture. To achieve ultimate efficiency and affordability, Clarke has assembled a team that brings together talent from across the F1 racing world as well as companies like Apple, Lucid Motors, Rivian and Tesla. The team also implemented a "bounty program" that rewards engineers through quantitative metrics such as vehicle mass, aerodynamic drag, and component costs to help them understand the impact of day-to-day decisions on the final product and customers.
The “bounty program” drives teams to even adopt more expensive parts in order to improve efficiency. For example, Clarke said even the base version of the electric pickup truck will have power-folding side mirrors — something typically found on luxury vehicles. The reason is that folding mirrors reduce aerodynamic drag, thereby improving overall efficiency. To control costs, Ford uses only one motor to control both the adjustment and folding of the mirror. This ultimate pursuit of efficiency is also reflected in the close collaboration between former F1 engineers and the design team. They used 3D printed and machined parts to create a Lego-like test vehicle, with thousands of extremely precise 3D printed components that can be replaced in minutes. This wind tunnel testing process, originally used only in the final stages of design, is now frequently used in the early stages of development. According to Ford, the midsize electric pickup will be 15 percent more aerodynamically efficient than any other pickup on the market.
This increase in efficiency directly reduces battery costs because lighter, more efficient vehicles can use smaller batteries. The final product will have about 15 percent, or 50 miles, more range than an equivalent gas-powered pickup, Clarke said. Ford also borrowed manufacturing strategies popularized by Tesla, including using aluminum unibody die-casts and upgrading some vehicle features from 12-volt to 48-volt power systems. In terms of electronic architecture, Ford adopts a regionalized control approach similar to Tesla and Rivian, integrating dozens of electronic control units (ECUs) into five main modules. Not only does this reduce complexity and cost, it also significantly reduces copper usage—the new pickup's wiring harness is 4,000 feet shorter and 22 pounds lighter than Ford's first-generation electric vehicle, according to software engineer Luccas Di Tullio. At the same time, Ford developed the software for these five major ECUs in-house, even down to the application layer, ensuring full control of vehicle control and user experience.