Ford Still Holds A Torch For EVs

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In yet another demonstration that the vehicle electrification movement has only just begun, on February 17, the Ford Motor Company staged an elaborate media event to re-introduce itself as a future-forward EV maker. That’s somewhat of a surprise, considering that Ford hit the pause button on EV production last fall. Still, the new PR push affirms that Ford remains committed to the new, affordable “Universal EV” platform it announced in August.

Ford Holds Torch For EVs, With An F1 Twist

The first vehicle to inhabit Ford’s new Universal EV space will be a mid-sized pickup truck that serves as a showcase for the company’s focus on delivering zero emission cars that draw more car buyers out of the petroleum vortetx. After all, why not try an EV if it costs the same — or less — as a gasmobile while delivering superior performance and extra bennies like bi-directional charging.

Part of the focus is on boosting battery range by tweaking the aerodynamic behavior of the new truck up a notch. “More than half of our aero team came from the Formula 1 world, where air is either your greatest ally or most punishing enemy,” explain Saleem Merkt, Advanced EV Aerodynamics senior manager at Ford.

“By applying our F1-inspired toolkit, we were able to find aerodynamic gains in places others might overlook,” Merkt elaborates.

Merkt lists three aerodynamic improvements aimed at making incremental improvements in the battery range of its new truck:

• A sleek cab roof-line, enabling high-speed air to shed over the truck bed
• A smaller smaller side-view mirror housing
• An underbody sheath that “hides” the rear wheels within the wake from the front tires

“If the same battery was married to the aerodynamics of the most aerodynamically efficient mid-size gas truck in the U.S., we believe our new electric truck would have nearly 50 miles or 15% more driving range,” Merkt states, “And a 30% improvement at highway speeds.”

The use of AI and 3-D printing in the design process is not a one-off, according to Merkt. “They allow us to pinpoint exactly which changes can have the biggest impact on battery cost and range, helping us understand the ‘why’ behind the physics,” he explains, noting that the electric pickup has laid the groundwork to pursue a similar design process in forthcoming models.

Cutting The Battery Down To Size

EV batteries are also overdue for a makeover. As noted by Ford’s executive director of Advanced EV Development, Alan Clarke, until now battery engineers have followed the bigger-is-better principle that dogged internal combustion engines, until BMW introduced the waste-to-energy turbo in the 1970s.

Ford followed with its engine-of-the-year EcoBoost in 2011. Now its secret, not-a-secret skunkworks team has applied a similar transformation to EV batteries, which currently soak up approximately 40% of the cost of an EV while contributing a hefty of 25% to its weight.

The skunkworks has been on the prowl for bounties, meaning tradeoffs that focus like a thousand points of light on battery range and cost. The bounty system provides every member of the team with the singular goal of cutting battery costs and improving range.

Part of the effort involved cutting through the complex supplier system for high-voltage power electronics architecture by bringing everything in-house, a strategy that took shape in 2023 when Ford acquired the firm Auto Motive Power and its engineering workforce, too.

“That means the hardware in the vehicle, including the bi-directional charging capabilities, comes from a team directly integrated into the one working on the platform and vehicle products,” Clarke emphasizes. “Customers will benefit from improvements that decrease the amount of time waiting around for the battery to charge, maximize the lifespan of the battery, and decreases in total cost of ownership.”

In addition to creating the first 48-volt low-voltage system offered by Ford, the power electronics team eliminated 4,000 feet of wire harness in the new truck, and made it 22 pounds lighter.

“Conventional vehicles are built with over 30 scattered electronic control units, or E-C-Us which are the brains of the vehicle,” Clarke explains. “Ford’s mid-size electric truck will have just five main modules, reducing wiring throughout the vehicle.”

“We’re creating a truly integrated electric vehicle platform, not a single part that can be easily copied,” he emphasized for good measure. “If we succeed, we will have a family of vehicles that we expect to compete on price with the best in the world, including gas vehicles.”

And Then There’s Tesla

Clearly, Ford was among the US automakers to get last year’s White House memo about pivoting away from EV manufacturing. However, the current occupant of the Oval Office is scheduled to leave on January 20, 2029 (peacefully this time, one hopes). After that, all bets are off.

If you caught that thing about competing on price against “the best in the world,” Clarke could mean the up-and-coming Chinese automaker BYD, which has been nipping at industry leader Tesla’s heels in the global EV market. Or, he could simply mean Tesla.

The Tesla angle surfaced again this morning in the CleanTechnica mailbox, when Ford’s PR team reminded us that the new electric truck will deploy LFP batteries alongside Ford’s first foray into the unicasting field.”The unicastings provide a more than 27% advantage in casting weight over 2022 Tesla Model Y,” we are told.

That focus on the Model Y is…interesting! EV makers have had a tough time attracting women buyers, with the Model Y being the one exception that proves the rule. Moving forward, though, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has effectively killed the Tesla brand for women. Adding to a long and growing list of misfires, in recent months Musk issued a ham-handed definition of femaleness while failing to regulate nonconsensual, sexualized images of women and minors generated by his Grok chatbot. Beyond auto sales, the ick factor has also rippled into Tesla’s Powerwall branch and threatens to undermine the company’s newly revived solar panel business, too.

Not satisfied with playing a key role in the second Trump presidency, Musk is now applying his bottomless wallet to the 2026 midterm elections, with a US Senate seat in Kentucky among the add-a-bead pearls to be gathered into his sphere of influence. The Jeffrey Epstein files have also been surfacing on the Tesla distract-o-meter. Over the past several weeks, Musk has engaged in a social media slap fight with LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman, presumably to deflect attention from his own connection to the scandal.

Streisand Effect, meet world’s richest man…

Image: The Ford Motor Company is moving forward with plans to launch an affordable electric pickup truck, pursuing a “bounty” strategy to optimize EV design (cropped, courtesy of Ford).