Just as the American EV market braces for a potential collapse, Ford is making a shocking pivot. With federal tax credits set to disappear on September 30 and demand expected to plummet, the automaker is doubling down with an additional $2 billion investment in battery-electric vehicles (BEVs). But it’s doing so with a new strategy borrowed not from its American rivals, but directly from China.
The centerpiece of this bet is a new midsize electric pickup with a targeted base price of just $30,000. CEO Jim Farley announced, on Monday, the unnamed vehicle at an event in Louisville, Kentucky, where it will be assembled, with a planned market arrival in 2027.
“This new truck, based on this universal platform, is going to be more spacious inside than the RAV4, the best-selling car in the United States,” Farley declared, directly targeting the king of the gasoline SUV market. “But it will have a frunk and it will have a whole pickup truck bed behind it. No one has seen this kind of flexibility.”
A $30,000 Truck With a Familiar Name?
Recent reports suggest the new EV pickup could be a revival of the Ranchero. According to the site Ford Authority, the company has filed a new trademark for the name, specifically for use on electric pickup trucks. The Ranchero, a car-truck hybrid not seen on U.S. roads since 1979, was a cult classic that offered the comfort of a sedan with the utility of a pickup bed.
This move marks a radical departure for Ford. It’s a break from its American competitors, notably Tesla, which has focused on premium vehicles like the commercially struggling Cybertruck. It’s also a break from Ford’s own profitable strategy of selling large, expensive pickups and SUVs like the F-150 and Expedition.
Instead, Ford is adopting a strategy that looks much more like that of Chinese automaker BYD, which has become the world’s largest EV seller by specializing in affordable electric cars. The cheapest BYD EV, the Seagull, starts at the equivalent of just $9,700 in China. This focus on affordability has allowed BYD to steal massive market share from Tesla in both China and Europe.
Farley acknowledged that many current EVs don’t address what buyers actually want. “A computer can have much lower costs—that’s why we redid this platform… to bring the costs down,” he told CNBC.
The Secret Sauce: Reinventing the Factory
So how does Ford plan to build a low-cost, high-performance pickup that no other American automaker has managed? By completely reinventing its design and manufacturing process. A secret “skunkworks” team created, the carmaker said, the new “Ford Universal EV Platform,” a simplified architecture using 20% fewer parts and 25% fewer fasteners. The wiring harness alone is 4,000 feet shorter.
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