Latest news with #AlanClarke
Newsweek
11-08-2025
- Automotive
- Newsweek
Ford's New Assembly Line Design is Key to Lowering Vehicle Costs
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Ford tore up the moving assembly line concept and designed a better one, the company's CEO Jim Farley explained to a crowd gathered at Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky for Ford's announcement that a new, lower-cost electric truck is coming to market in 2027. "One of the first things we did was bring in manufacturing expertise directly from our teams in Dearborn. That was incredibly important [it] set the baseline of what the architecture of the products would be off the platform. [It is a] marriage of both worlds, in terms of the expertise of 122-year-old company with massive capabilities and supply chain and industrialization in general," Alan Clarke, Ford's executive director of advanced EV development, told Newsweek. "[It] was really important to not only engage early, but also ensure that the ideas were able to fail fast. That's a startup mentality. When you're moving quickly, you want to really quickly determine: Is this actually more efficient? Does it actually save us money? Do we still deliver what we need to the customer in order to effectively make the product?" he said. The formula for the new assembly line structure, the Ford Universal EV Production System, starts with the new Ford Universal EV Platform. That platform underpins future battery-electric vehicles and is the result of a California-based skunkworks operation that was designed and enabled to break Ford's timeline, agility and product development norms. F-150 Lightning trucks coming down an assembly line. F-150 Lightning trucks coming down an assembly line. Ford Motor Company Instead of a traditional snaking assembly line structure, Ford's Louisville plant, which expanded 52,000 square feet as part of the effort, will feature an "assembly tree." That tree will include three sub-assemblies that run down their own separate assembly lines in unison, then join together at the end. "There's been a lot of work in the last three years on AI, on plants, and we're doing that and putting that into the system too. You've seen some of that already, but then we've also taken to this new platform, what we're able to do and add to that. So again, it's a win, win on both sides," a Ford spokesperson said. As part of the vehicle building shift, single-piece aluminum unicastings will replace dozens of smaller parts. This will allow the front and rear of the vehicle to be assembled separately. Additionally, less parts means fewer opportunities for failures that result in recalls, a business element that Ford has continuously struggled with during Farley's tenure, costing the company billions. "Elegant, simple designs are ultimately what enable low-cost: deletion of parts, deletion of process.... There's a lot of innovation of powertrain, in how we put the whole product together," the spokesperson said. Under the new assembly plan, Ford's assembly line workers on the third branch of the line put together the battery, seats, consoles and carpeting. Parts travel down the assembly tree to operators, further simplifying operations, in kit form with all fasteners, scanners and power tools included, in the order in which they are intended to be used. The team has further optimized the assembly line and order of operations for building the vehicle to improve the ergonomics for employees, reducing twisting, reaching and bending. Ford estimates that this new way of assembling vehicles will be 40 percent faster than the current assembly time of the Ford Escape. Some of that time, Ford says, will be yielded back to the company for other tasks, with an ultimate net speed improvement of 15 percent. It takes 20 hours to build one Ford Escape today.
Motor Trend
06-08-2025
- Automotive
- Motor Trend
Ford's Coming New Midsize EV Truck Is Taking Shape In California
The future of Ford's electric vehicle efforts is taking shape not in the company's traditional home of Dearborn, Michigan, but in a city the company once left long ago: Long Beach, California. Alongside hangars driving the future of both commercial air travel and spaceflight, Ford's new EV Development Center (EVDC) will serve as the home for the formerly secret skunk works team headed up by Alan Clarke, the ex Tesla engineering head who joined Ford three years ago. Here, the team is currently working on a platform that'll underpin a slew of future Ford EVs, including an affordable midsize electric pickup truck and compact SUV when it debuts for 2027. Ford's EV future is taking shape in Long Beach, California, with a new EV Development Center. Led by ex-Tesla engineer Alan Clarke, the team is creating a modular platform for a 2027 midsize electric pickup. Their goal: a $25,000 competitive EV leveraging collaborative engineering. This summary was generated by AI using content from this MotorTrend article. Read Next The development work going on at the Long Beach facility, which we had a chance to visit, is designed to turn many of the company's established automaking processes on its head. Rather than methodically moving a vehicle from concept to production through different design, aerodynamics, packaging, and engineering teams (and often back again as problems arise), Clarke's team of 350 engineers, designers, and other technical staff are working collaboratively as they shepherd Ford's first second-generation EV—which Ford just confirmed is a midsize pickup—into production. The team, which works much like how Clarke's teams worked at Tesla, places aerodynamicists with designers, closures engineers with chassis engineers, and body engineers with powertrain engineers. The goal, Clarke tells us, is not just to have the team challenge preconceptions and existing constraints, but to also empathize with one another and understand what their challenges are. Other advantages are hard fought but no less important. 'Sometimes [an advantage] could be, 'Hey, the function of your part is doing the same thing that mine is doing. Maybe this could be one part.' So when you start celebrating two people that can delete their job by deleting their part and then they get to both work on that one and make it twice as high quality, the product gets less expensive, and the customer doesn't notice,' Clarke said. This is especially important given the goals set out for the EVDC team by Ford head Jim Farley: build a low-cost modular EV platform that starts around $25,000, is competitive with both Chinese EV makers and Tesla globally, and produces a profit within a year. Regardless of the challenge, Clarke seems confident that Ford's existing EV experience, manufacturing prowess, and newfound agility will prime Ford's new Long Beach-developed affordable EV for success—even with outside noise about a new Chevrolet Bolt, stripped out Teslas, Slate's $27,000 pickup, and cheap Chinese cars. 'I think being first is not necessarily going to win here. I certainly think that investing in the right technologies to get there, the right battery technologies, the right drive unit technologies, the right power electronic technologies, having the right software—you have to have the recipe. You can't just do one thing.' With Ford set to make a big EV announcement next week—what it calls its 'next Model T moment,' we might not have to wait long to see our first glimpse of its new Long Beach-bred 2027 electric pickup.
Yahoo
06-08-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
'This is a Model T moment for us': Ford teases new family of affordable EVs, here's what to expect
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Rumors suggest a small electric pick-up truck is in the making 'Skunkworks' project was set up to bring more affordable EVs to the masses Ford will unveil more on August 11 Ford's CEO, Jim Farley, announced on a recent earnings call that the company was due to unveil plans for a family of affordable EVs, referring to the scheduled event as a "Model T moment for us at Ford". Farley, who has gone on record to explain just how good the competition from China is (he was famously impressed by a Xiaomi SU7), explained that the company needed to double-down on its EV plans if it is to remain competitive in the future. As a result, Farley oversaw the foundation of a 'skunkworks' team last year that was brought in to develop a low-cost electric vehicle platform that could underpin a series of new electrified models at speed and at scale. At the time, Ford was losing as much as $5.5 billion per year on EVs, which includes the Ford F-150 Lightning pick-up, the Mustang Mach-E, the Explorer and the slow-selling Capri and Puma Gen-E in European markets. Alan Clarke, an ex-Tesla employee who was previously in charge of overseeing the development of Model Y, was reportedly part of the 100-strong team that was tasked with introducing lithium iron phosphate battery-powered EVs that could compete on price with rivals coming out of China. Now, Farley has said that the company plans to reveal the culmination of that work at an event in Kentucky on August 11, comparing the moment to Ford's earliest mass-produced motor vehicle that opened up motoring to the general public in the early 1900s. What we can expect from Ford's announcement Industry insiders have been suggesting online that the new platform is likely to underpin a smaller, more compact pick-up truck that would offer a respectable range and impressive hauling abilities, but cost less than today's $54,780 F-150 Lightning. Farley has previously hinted that pricing will be under $30,000 (around £23,000 / AU$46,000) for the cheapest products on the upcoming platform, according to Inside EVs, but didn't go as far to state exactly what those products would be. We can also expect to see an SUV make that list, as Ford doesn't currently sell the Explorer or the Capri outside of Europe, seeing as both of those cars were a platform-sharing exercise with Volkswagen. Dig under the skin, and you'll see that they share most of their parts with the ID.4 with disappointing results, but this all new skunkworks platform would allow the company to have greater control over an SUV that would appeal more to the US market and could rival a slew of excellent models from Kia, Hyundai, Chevrolet and Tesla. Finally, this new all-electric platform could also underpin a second attempt at a full-sized electric pick-up truck that could not only undercut the current F-150 Lightning, but also cost a lot less than a Rivian R1T, Chevy Silverado EV and Tesla's failing Cybertruck. You might also like I've driven the new Ford Capri – and it proves that nailing the retro-inspired EV brief isn't easy "AI will leave a lot of white-collar people behind" - Ford CEO latest to claim AI will wipe out millions of jobs I've driven the new Mercedes-Benz CLA and it convinced me that EV efficiency can actually be exciting
The Verge
31-07-2025
- Automotive
- The Verge
Ford's planning a ‘Model T moment' for EVs on August 11th
Ford is preparing a major electric vehicle announcement that CEO Jim Farley calls a 'Model T moment,' as reported earlier by InsideEVs. During an earnings call on Wednesday, Farley said the company will reveal plans to design and build a 'breakthrough' EV, along with a new platform, at an August 11th event in Kentucky. Even as Ford's EV business took a $1.3 billion hit, the automaker's 'skunkworks' team, helmed by former Tesla engineer Alan Clarke, has been working in the background to develop a more affordable electric car. 'This is a Model T moment for us at Ford, a chance to bring a new family of vehicles to the world that offer incredible technology, efficiency, space, and features,' Farley said. Ford said last year that the new low-cost EV platform will underpin a pickup truck slated for release in 2027 and will also extend to other vehicles in the future. The automaker's upcoming event comes at a pivotal moment for an industry that once felt like the future of cars. This month, Tesla revealed its largest revenue drop in years. The EV-maker also announced a slew of deals in an attempt to reverse slumping sales, and even revealed plans to launch a stripped-down Model Y. President Donald Trump's recent actions haven't helped the EV industry, either, as the administration plans to roll back EV tax credits this September. Trump's tariffs have also hit automakers hard, with Ford saying it expects the duties to shave $2 billion off its annual earnings. Farley says Ford is working to compete with the low-cost EVs made by Chinese automakers, like Geely and BYD. 'We believe the only way to really compete effectively with the Chinese over the globe on EVs is to go and really push ourselves to radically reengineer and transform our engineering supply chain and manufacturing process,' Farley said. 'That will come to life soon.' Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Emma Roth Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Cars Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Electric Cars Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Ford Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Transportation
TechCrunch
31-07-2025
- Automotive
- TechCrunch
Ford to reveal more about its new low-cost electric vehicles on August 11
Ford is set to reveal more information about its upcoming low-cost electric vehicles at an event in Kentucky on August 11. And the company is talking a very big game: CEO Jim Farley said Wednesday that the announcement is 'a Model T moment' for Ford. Farley made the comments after Ford revealed its electric vehicle division posted a loss of around $1.3 billion in the second quarter of 2025. Sales of the company's top two EVs, the F-150 Lightning and the Mustang Mach-E, are declining, all while things are looking increasingly tough for electric vehicles under the second Trump administration. Farley first revealed that Ford had a skunkworks team developing a low-cost electric vehicle in February 2024. As TechCrunch first reported, the effort is being led by former Tesla executive Alan Clarke, and the team is brimming with talent from companies like Tesla, Rivian, Apple, and Lucid Motors. The company has been deliberately vague about any specifics, but has admitted that the first vehicle to be built on this new low-cost platform will be a mid-size pickup truck set for release in 2027. Ford has said it will build 'multiple vehicle styles — for both retail and commercial customers' on the platform, and that these vehicles will feature 'personalized digital experiences.' Cheaper models could help Ford, but 2027 is still a long way out. While there are basically no mass-market electric vehicles available in the U.S. at or under $30,000, that likely won't be the case when Ford's secretive EVs hit the market in two years. Tesla has said it will start selling a stripped-down (and possibly smaller) Model Y SUV later this year. General Motors is bringing back the Chevy Bolt next year. And Jeff Bezos-backed startup Slate Auto is putting its own low-cost electric pickup on sale as early as late 2026.
