August 11, 2025 - Ford To Build $30K Electric Truck in Kentucky

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 11, 2025 and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.

Today at Ford's Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky, CEO Jim Farley announced that the plant would be retooled to produce electric vehicles based on the company's new Universal EV Platform. This is the vehicle architecture that's been developed out of a skunkworks program the automaker established several years ago in Long Beach California. The goal was to develop profitable lower cost EVs. 

The first product from the platform that will be built was announced about a year ago as a midsize electric pickup truck. Few specifications have been revealed yet, although Ford says it will have a footprint similar to the current Ford Maverick, which is about 200 inches long and passenger volume greater than the Toyota RAV4, which should put it about 100 cubic feet. It will have performance similar to the Mustang EcoBoost, so about 5 seconds or less for 0-60, and we expect it to have about 300 miles of range. 

The important number for the new truck is the price point that is targeted to start at $30,000 which puts it between the Maverick and Ranger starting price. Getting to that starting price has been the task of the skunkworks team. The new platform will be the first from a legacy automaker to adopt architecture pioneered by Tesla a few years ago and since adopted by many Chinese OEMs. Rather than an assembly of stampings, the new platform uses large-scale aluminum diecastings for the front and rear structure and is joined to a central structural lithium iron phosphate battery pack. Three sub-assembly lines will produce the front, rear and central assemblies with seats and interior being mounted on the battery before being joined to the casting-supported structures. The truck also features a new zonal electrical architecture that eliminates 4,000 ft of wiring and a software platform that supports OTA updates. Production should start by the end of 2026, with vehicles on sale in 2027. 

Thanks for listening.