Photography courtesy Ford
In the early 1900s, Henry Ford laid out a revolutionary way of producing cars, a process we now know as the assembly line.
In short, this all-new way of production had cars rolling off the assembly line not just quicker, but with a much lower price tag than the average car of the day.
Fast-forward to 2025, and Ford is once again laying out a new way of producing cars, but this time for EVs.
The Universal Vehicle, as Ford calls it, is designed to be a flexible platform that can be adapted for use in “trucks, cars, and everything in between.”
To produce this Universal Vehicle, Ford also explains its all-new way of assembling cars, the Ford Universal EV Production System.
Essentially, the system replaces one single assembly line with a three-branched tree. Each branch builds a sub-assembly–in this case, the front, back and middle of the vehicle–that is then joined together at the “trunk” of the tree:
Large single-piece aluminum unicastings replace dozens of smaller parts, enabling the front and rear of the vehicle to be assembled separately.
The front and rear are then combined with the third sub-assembly, the structural battery, which is independently assembled with seats, consoles and carpeting, to form the vehicle.
Parts travel down the assembly tree to operators in a kit. Within that kit, all fasteners, scanners and power tools required for the job are included–and in the correct orientation for use.
In theory, according to Ford, its Universal EV Production System will be able to speed up production, as workers will spend less time bending and reaching and more time assembling the vehicle.
To achieve its goals, Ford is investing $5 billion and creating some 4000 jobs at its Louisville Assembly Plant and BlueOval Battery Park Michigan. The first vehicle to make use of the new platform and assembly system? A midsize, four-door electric truck with a planned starting price around $30,000, seemingly aimed to compete with the Slate pickup.
...four-door electric truck with a planned starting price around $30,000, seemingly aimed to compete with the Slate pickup...
I'm going to go ahead and say this will never happen. They will build the $75k version, but the low-cost version will never happen. Not to call them liars, but I've heard this story before. I'm still waiting for a $40k-$50k work Lightning. And how about those $19k Mavricks that I never saw?
In reply to Toyman! :
I hear you, I'll be pleasantly surprised if Ford can deliver on that promise.
I mean, they did sell the $19k Maverick (I and a few other friends bought them) as well as the $40k Lightning... briefly. And in-between was the absolutely atrocious dealer network marking them up like crazy, meaning normal people never encountered them in the real world.
So real life follows nascaar? Feels like all fords will now be a version of the car of tomorrow.
They haven't answered the most critical question: Can you use these like a children's toy, and mix and match front , middle, and rear sections?
This sounds an awful lot like Tesla's approach. It makes sense, although the "making it in thirds" seemed to kinda gloss over where the joins are. To my totally ignorant-of-automotive-assembly-lines brain, you still have to weld these parts somewhere. Maybe they can all bolt in now?
Sounds more like an old GM concept- they proposed this concept back in 2002. And apparently into production recently.
This seems similar to what Volkswagen is doing with their one platform for all vehicles. Is it really that different aside from being EV only?
Ford makes cars?
There's definitely a dose of Tesla (gigacasting) and GM Ultium/VW MQB (modular) in there. Sounds like the "innovation", such as there is, is in how they are integrated and assembled. And physically smaller battery packs. I guess we'll see if they can pull it off. Based on their recall history lately, it seems like attention to detail isn't a strong area for them at the moment.
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