Ford Motor Co.‘s Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley shared on Thursday new details of its Universal EV platform, which will drive its electric vehicle business from 2027 onwards.
The US brand recorded its fourth straight year-on-year decline in monthly EV sales last month, with a 69% plunge to just 1,743 units.
However, it is still confident in the recovery of its ‘Model e’ EV unit, which has yet to become profitable.
While sharing four images on X, Farley highlighted the Universal EV platform project as “one of the most audacious and important projects in Ford’s history.”
According to the Detroit automaker’s CEO, “American innovation is how we compete and win against China and the rest of the world.”
Ford unveiled its Universal EV Platform last August. The company is investing “approximately $5 billion” to develop a midsize electric pickup truck priced around $30,000.
“The team is spending countless hours getting every last drop of aero efficiency on the mid-size electric pickup,” Farley wrote.
Noting that the team has designed and developed “hundreds of prototypes” to “shape the face of the truck over the last few years, the Chief Executive reaffirmed that Ford will “use large unicastings for the first time.”
“The radically simplified aluminum unicastings condense over 146 parts into 2,” he said, adding that it enables “the assembly tree method” at the company’s Louisville Assembly Plant.
Shift from High-End EVs
Late last year, Ford announced it would permanently discontinue production of its flagship full-size electric pickup — the F-150 Lightning — signaling a shift to hybrid models.
After the EV tax credit deadline expired on September 30, “the last couple of months have been really clear to us,” the CEO said, before flagging a 5% shrink in the EV market.
However, Farley highlighted that “more importantly, the very high-end EVs, the $50,000, $70,000, $80,000 vehicles, they just weren’t selling.”
The F-150 Lightning is priced between $57,375 and $87,590, depending on the configuration.
The F-150 achieved a 2.2% share of the total US vehicle market in the third quarter, boosted by a demand increase ahead of the federal tax termination.
Even as Ford‘s EV sales halved in the fourth quarter, the F-150 Lightning remained a market leader in the electric pickup segment, placing above Tesla‘s Cybertruck and GM‘s trucks.
Cox Automotive data published last month shows that the F-150 Lightning accounted for 27,307 of Ford‘s vehicle sales last year, a 18% decline from a year before.
EV Business Restructure
Ford aims for its EV unit ‘Model e’ to be profitable by 2029, with annual improvements starting in 2026.
The Detroit automaker reported a $19.5 billion loss late last year after having to restructure its EV strategy due to US policy shifts and rising demand for gasoline-powered vehicles.
These changes also affected battery production, which Ford had started in Louisville, through its partnership with South Korean manufacturer SK On.
However, four months after announcing that it would produce batteries for EVs though its BlueOval SK joint venture, the company halted the plans — leading to the termination of the partnership and the layoff of over 1,000 workers in the Kentucky plant alone.
Ford will now focus on battery energy storage systems (BESS), an area where competitor Tesla is well distinguished.
Last month, Ford appointed Lisa Drake as the new President of Ford Energy, which will handle the battery storage business unit.
Additionally, Ford agreed to build a battery factory in Michigan with technology from the Chinese battery maker CATL back in 2023.
Two weeks ago, in an interview with Bloomberg, the automaker’s CEO Jim Farley reaffirmed the company’s strategy.
“We have a licensing agreement, but we feel it’s better to build these batteries in the United States with American workers, with our own Ford workers and understand the IP than import them like they’re being done today,” Farley stated.
“The best way to compete with China is to get close to the IP and then run the plants at Ford,” the CEO added.
China Comments
Chinese electric vehicle competition has been heavily discussed in the industry these past weeks due to the Canada-China deal signed last month.
Canada will allow 49,000 Chinese EVs to enter the country annually for a lowered tariff of 6.1%, with a long-term target of having brands set up local production there — as part of the country’s auto industry strategy.
The Government has been shifting towards Asian partners as US manufacturers, namely Detroit automakers such as General Motors and Stellantis, scale back production there due to the US tariffs imposed last year.
Speaking about Chinese automakers in the Decoder podcast last year, Farley said “there’s no real competition from Tesla, GM, or Ford with what we’ve seen from China.”
The CEO flagged that this “domination” in the EV landscape comes from “great innovation at a very low cost.”
“There are hundreds of companies, and they’re all sponsored by their local governments, so they have huge subsidies,” adding that it includes brands like BYD and Geely.
But it also includes “companies like Nio and Xiaomi, many of which have never been in the car business before, and that’s a big advantage for them.”
The Ford CEO has publicly praised Xiaomi‘s debut model and revealed he personally drove the company’s SU7 sedan for several months.
Last week, Ford and Xiaomi denied a Financial Times report that the two companies held discussions about forming a joint venture to build electric vehicles in the United States.
“This story is completely false. There is no truth to it,” Ford said in a statement.
