Ford to build new EV truck at Louisville, Ky., plant, invest $2B
This is on top of the $3 billion planned for a battery park in Michigan. Together, the two will secure nearly 4,000 jobs.
"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 Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. "Thanks to Ford's leaders for their continued faith in Kentucky and our incredible workforce. Ford and Kentucky have been a tremendous team for more than 100 years, and that partnership has never been stronger than it is today."
Louisville Assembly Plant, one of two Ford plants in Louisville, will expand by 52,000 square feet to move material more efficiently, a press release said. Digital infrastructure upgrades will give Louisville Assembly Plant the fastest network with the most access points out of any Ford plant globally, enabling more quality scans.
"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," Ford CEO Jim Farley said in the release.
The first low-cost EV in Ford's new "Universal EV Program" will be a midsize, four-door electric pickup produced at the Louisville Assembly Plant. That vehicle launch is scheduled for 2027.
The electric truck will cost about $30,000, the press release said. "As fast as a Mustang EcoBoost. More passenger space than the latest Toyota RAV4 -- with a frunk [front trunk] and a bed."
The batteries for the truck will be assembled at the BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall, Mich., outside of Battle Creek.
Ford called the announcement a "Model T Moment" because the price of the new truck will be roughly the same price as a Model T was when adjusted for inflation.
Farley said in the announcement in Louisville that this investment comes as the automotive industry is at a crossroads because of new technology and new competition.
"We knew that the Chinese would be the major player for us globally, companies like BYD, new startups from around the world, big technology has their ambition in the auto space. They're all coming for us legacy automotive companies," CNBC reported Farley said. "We needed a radical approach and a really tough challenge to create an affordable vehicle."
Ford said the Louisville plant will "secure" about 2,200 jobs, but noted that once it's retooled for EV production, it will employ about 600 fewer workers than it has now. As of April 2024, it had more than 3,000 employees.
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However, knowing what to ask to determine if you can trust someone cannot be learned by reading a book or following a manual – which is why teaching kids to play the role of C is harder than teaching them anything else. In an AI world of misinformation, deep fakes, and hallucinations, knowing who to trust is also more important than anything else, and it is therefore worth considering if there is another way. Anyone who has spent even minimal time with children knows that they always seem to have a question they're dying to ask. So maybe there is no need to teach them? Maybe they already know what and how to ask? Maybe the tricky part is to cultivate an environment where they feel safe sharing their curiosity, doubts, skepticism, uncertainty, and wonder? To teach kids to play the role of C, educators must focus less on teaching and more on creating a space for kids to ask. Kids know what to ask to determine what can and cannot be trusted, but they only do so if they trust themselves and the 'game' they are a part of. Whether it's the game of school or the game of society, the rules that shape our lives need to be designed so that we feel safe sharing our questions. And that is probably the third thing Turing would teach kids in the AI age: that the rules, structures, systems and technologies that shape their lives could be different – that, unlike their bodily features, they are not laws of nature and therefore can and should be challenged – and that the more someone or something presents itself as right, good or true, the more they must ask themselves and each other why that is: Why does Sam Altman feel the need to say that a kid born today will never be smarter than AI? Who is he trying to convince? What rules, structures, systems and technologies shape his life? And how do they promote or prevent the life we want for ourselves? Turing reminds us that while AI's job is to play the role of A, our job is to play all the roles in the imitation game. But more importantly, he reminds us that we have what it takes to switch between them. We can pretend that we know something that we don't (like what will outsmart who in the future). But we can also trust our own experience and innate human ability to learn and grow. And we can ask the questions that help us distinguish and determine what is right/wrong, true/false, good/bad. Most of us do all of this without even noticing. And maybe that's what kids should head back to school to learn: that just because something isn't noticed, surveyed, or programmed, doesn't mean it's about to be outsmarted by AI.
