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What happens when you put Tesla veterans, Apple engineers and Ford misfits in a factory together at 3 a.m.? A $30,000 electric truck that could either save Ford or be its next Edsel.
Ford has been running a secret “skunk works” project since 2022 to build an electric truck that can compete with Chinese automakers, says The Wall Street Journal. The team—led by Tesla Model S engineer Alan Clarke and staffed with Apple and Tesla veterans plus what Clarke calls Ford’s “misfits and malcontents”—is tearing up a century of manufacturing practices to hit that $30,000 price point. They’ve eliminated thousands of feet of copper wiring, ditched Ford’s “smokers window” design and scrapped the traditional assembly line for a modular “assembly tree” system. CEO Jim Farley is calling it Ford’s “Model T moment.” One hitch: Ford’s previous electric F-150 cost up to $77,000 and the company killed it last year after racking up billions in losses.
The truck is set to launch in 2027 with 300 miles of range and Mustang-level speed. Hyundai’s CEO says competing with China on EVs “is impossible” without government subsidies, but Ford is betting a radical culture clash between Silicon Valley and Detroit can prove him wrong.