August 12, 2025 - Next Day Thoughts On Ford EV Announcements

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 12, 2025, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.

Now that we've had 24 hours to digest yesterday's announcement from Ford about how it will retool its Louisville, Kentucky assembly plant to build new, lower-cost electric vehicles, it's time to examine some of the claims. As usual, the communications people and speechwriters' job is to put the most positive spin on everything and make bold claims, some of which will hopefully come to fruition. It's important to keep in mind that Ford has shared few specific details, but we can make some initial judgements based on what we do know. 

Let's look at the vehicle architecture first. What we know for certain is that the basic structure consists of three main components: large aluminum die castings for the front and rear and the battery pack. This basic idea was pioneered in 2022 by Tesla and has been duplicated by numerous Chinese automakers. All of these previous structures use a welded stamped steel central structure for the passenger cell to which the castings and battery are attached. We don't yet know if Ford will follow this path or further expand on this with even larger castings that eliminate the steel cage.  That would potentially further simplify assembly and reduce cost but it adds complexities with repairability after a crash. 

Another key element of the announcement was the new assembly process, which moves from a traditional single assembly transfer line to what Ford calls an assembly tree. This consists of three parallel lines to assemble the front, rear and center sections, which are then joined. In principle, this sounds innovative, and the actual layout on the plant floor may be new, but there are aspects of this that have been done for decades. For example, powertrains have been assembled on separate lines since the days of the Model T before being integrated in the final assembly. Increasingly since the 1980s, suppliers have integrated modules that are then just joined to the car, such as the complete dashboard or corner modules with suspension and brakes. 

The assembly process for the Ford F-150 Lightning in Dearborn is already something like the tree arrangement. The frame, suspension, brakes and battery are all assembled on one line that begins at one end of the plant and moves toward the middle. The cab and bed start at the opposite end and move to the center as the interior is installed. Where the two meet somewhere in the center of the factory, they are all joined and then turn down another line where final components are added. 

We don't know yet exactly how much the process in Louisville will differ from what Ford is doing at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center, but chances are it will be more alike than different.

Thanks for listening.