Ford Universal Electric Platform

[Sherminator98]

10 hours ago, Dequindre said:

The deaths of the Camaro and Challenger probably relieved some pressure on Ford to update the platform substantially. The Mustang is the last real pony car standing.

 

While the Challenger isn't being sold, they are making a two door Charger

 

 

The Camaro is in the shitty position of having the Corvette above it, so it's a redheaded step child. The Mustang is one of Fords Halo cars so it doesn't have to deal with that. 

[morgan20]

The NY Times has an article about Ford Universal Electric Platform and the skunkworks. It's titled Ford’s Car of the Future, Hatched in a Skunk Works Near Los Angeles. 

 

Some excerpts:

 

In 2021, after Apple gave up on its secretive plans to build a driverless electric car, Doug Field left the technology company to embark on a mission impossible meant to save the American auto industry.

 

He rejoined Ford Motor, where he had started his career decades earlier, with the grand ambition of designing electric vehicles that would allow the century-old company to compete with Chinese carmakers, whose vehicles are hugely popular with consumers and breaking global sales records.

 

Mr. Field knew the old ways of Detroit wouldn’t do. Time was short, and to jolt the storied automaker into action he created an automotive start-up of sorts — a secretive lab near Los Angeles, with a satellite office in the heart of Silicon Valley, that he called a “skunk works.”

 

He recruited engineers and designers from electric vehicle makers like Tesla, Rivian and Lucid and from start-ups working on batteries, electronics and software, and promised them the kind of creative freedom that tech workers take for granted.

 

To shield his project from corporate meddling, anyone not on Mr. Field’s select team wasn’t even allowed through the door. No exceptions.

 

The best hope is to leapfrog the Chinese by producing better batteries, more efficient electric motors and other breakthroughs and then doing it again and again. And the best hope for making those things happen are people like Mr. Field, who are trying to teach Detroit to be as innovative as Silicon Valley.

“I knew it would be a completely different challenge than anything I’d done before,” he said, “which was to try and change the course of a large organization.”

 

Mr. Field’s task now, he said, is to meld Ford’s century of manufacturing experience with this kind of inventiveness. As the vehicle [CE1] moves closer to production, he has been allowing more people to cross the skunk works’ moat. The team now has a satellite office in Dearborn, Mich., Ford’s hometown.

 

“Getting a large company to be able to still produce high volume and high quality, and be able to innovate,” he said, “that would be a force to be reckoned with.”

Edited December 12, 2025 by morgan20

[DeluxeStang]

4 hours ago, morgan20 said:

The NY Times has an article about Ford Universal Electric Platform and the skunkworks. It's titled Ford’s Car of the Future, Hatched in a Skunk Works Near Los Angeles. 

 

Some excerpts:

 

In 2021, after Apple gave up on its secretive plans to build a driverless electric car, Doug Field left the technology company to embark on a mission impossible meant to save the American auto industry.

 

He rejoined Ford Motor, where he had started his career decades earlier, with the grand ambition of designing electric vehicles that would allow the century-old company to compete with Chinese carmakers, whose vehicles are hugely popular with consumers and breaking global sales records.

 

Mr. Field knew the old ways of Detroit wouldn’t do. Time was short, and to jolt the storied automaker into action he created an automotive start-up of sorts — a secretive lab near Los Angeles, with a satellite office in the heart of Silicon Valley, that he called a “skunk works.”

 

He recruited engineers and designers from electric vehicle makers like Tesla, Rivian and Lucid and from start-ups working on batteries, electronics and software, and promised them the kind of creative freedom that tech workers take for granted.

 

To shield his project from corporate meddling, anyone not on Mr. Field’s select team wasn’t even allowed through the door. No exceptions.

 

The best hope is to leapfrog the Chinese by producing better batteries, more efficient electric motors and other breakthroughs and then doing it again and again. And the best hope for making those things happen are people like Mr. Field, who are trying to teach Detroit to be as innovative as Silicon Valley.

“I knew it would be a completely different challenge than anything I’d done before,” he said, “which was to try and change the course of a large organization.”

 

Mr. Field’s task now, he said, is to meld Ford’s century of manufacturing experience with this kind of inventiveness. As the vehicle [CE1] moves closer to production, he has been allowing more people to cross the skunk works’ moat. The team now has a satellite office in Dearborn, Mich., Ford’s hometown.

 

“Getting a large company to be able to still produce high volume and high quality, and be able to innovate,” he said, “that would be a force to be reckoned with.”

Nice find friend, we've heard a lot of these talking points before, but it's really nice to see just how innovative this team is being. I really liked the quote from Farley about finding the balance of aero and aesthetics for these EVs, that was a concern I had following the three row situation, that they would rely on radical aero, and the way it looked was the way the wind tunnel wanted it to look with no real effort put into the styling. Sounds like that's not gonna be the case with him talking about making something aero efficient that's also "incredibly attractive". 

 

So it's not gonna be this weird Prius shape with a bed 😂. 

[morgan20]

9 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

but it's really nice to see just how innovative this team is being. 

 

Yea, exactly. A lot of us, me included, were initially skeptical that things would be really different at the skunkworks, and worried that the corpo big shots in Dearborn and other Ford lifers would neuter or destroy it as they often do in other parts of FoMoCo.

 

The following two sentences from the article puts that concern to rest. @akirby, this confirms what you've said many times on this forum. 😊

 

He recruited engineers and designers from electric vehicle makers like Tesla, Rivian and Lucid and from start-ups working on batteries, electronics and software, and promised them the kind of creative freedom that tech workers take for granted.

 

To shield his project from corporate meddling, anyone not on Mr. Field’s select team wasn’t even allowed through the door. No exceptions.

 

Edited December 12, 2025 by morgan20

[DeluxeStang]

Coming with the news today, a confirmation that Ford is doubling down of their affordable smaller EVs, with additional details that they plan to have 5 affordable EVs on sale by the end of the decade, 4 being produced in the US. 

 

Logically those 4 will all be built in the same plant. It's a mystery as to what those 4 models will be beyond the midsized truck but I'm guessing it'll be:

- That 30k midsized truck

- A smallish utility that tries to take the place of the escape. Could be a boxier utility, or a next gen mach-e based on CE1 that's a little smaller a more affordable. 

- A cargo van

- That RWD performance sedan Farley has mentioned a few times. 

 

Overseas from the Renault merger, we know we'll get two models. But if only one of the overseas models is described as affordable, It sounds like one will be value oriented based on what we're hearing, and one won't. So a new fiesta/focus thing, and then maybe something sportier and/or more premium. 

[rmc523]

15 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

Coming with the news today, a confirmation that Ford is doubling down of their affordable smaller EVs, with additional details that they plan to have 5 affordable EVs on sale by the end of the decade, 4 being produced in the US. 

 

Logically those 4 will all be built in the same plant. It's a mystery as to what those 4 models will be beyond the midsized truck but I'm guessing it'll be:

- That 30k midsized truck

- A smallish utility that tries to take the place of the escape. Could be a boxier utility, or a next gen mach-e based on CE1 that's a little smaller a more affordable. 

- A cargo van

- That RWD performance sedan Farley has mentioned a few times. 

 

Overseas from the Renault merger, we know we'll get two models. But if only one of the overseas models is described as affordable, It sounds like one will be value oriented based on what we're hearing, and one won't. So a new fiesta/focus thing, and then maybe something sportier and/or more premium. 

 

Unless the 5th is a next-gen Mach E, staying where it is?

[DeluxeStang]

2 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

 

Unless the 5th is a next-gen Mach E, staying where it is?

It's possible, I believe the running theory is that the next gen mach-e would be CE1 and they'd want to consolidate as much as they can into one plant, but time will tell. Leaving the mach-e where It is would be the cheaper alternative short term.

[rmc523]

15 minutes ago, DeluxeStang said:

It's possible, I believe the running theory is that the next gen mach-e would be CE1 and they'd want to consolidate as much as they can into one plant, but time will tell. Leaving the mach-e where It is would be the cheaper alternative short term.

 

Granted it's Autoblog, but their reporting had this note....

 

By 2030, almost every Ford will have a hybrid or multi-energy option on the table. But the bottom line, according to the automaker, is that five new affordable vehicles are planned for introduction by the end of the decade, four of which will be assembled in America.

 

 

Ford Updates Plans: 5 New Affordable Vehicles by 2030 - Autoblog

 

Four of the 5 assembled in America could either refer to Mach E, or it could mean Maverick still in Hermosillo?

[Sherminator98]

18 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

Four of the 5 assembled in America could either refer to Mach E, or it could mean Maverick still in Hermosillo?

 

Holy shit the freaking Auto press is completely fucking this up....going straight to the source:

https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/ford-reinvests-trucks-hybrids-affordable-electric-vehicles

 

Quote

The company no longer intends to produce a previously planned new electric commercial van for Europe but will continue to maintain its full lineup of electrified vans for that market. Ford also plans to replace a planned electric commercial van for North America with a new, affordable commercial van — with gas and hybrid models — to meet the needs of commercial customers. This new van will be manufactured at Ford’s Ohio Assembly Plant.

 

These moves complement the company’s plan to launch five new affordable vehicles by the end of the decade, four of which will be assembled in the U.S. The company also plans to expand gas, hybrid and extended-range electric options across its portfolio with nearly every vehicle featuring a hybrid or multi-energy powertrain choice by the end of the decade.

 

[DeluxeStang]

9 minutes ago, Sherminator98 said:

 

Holy shit the freaking Auto press is completely fucking this up....going straight to the source:

https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/ford-reinvests-trucks-hybrids-affordable-electric-vehicles

 

 

I believe those 5 affordable products are pretty much all stuff planned for CE1 but I could be wrong. They could be including ICE and hybrids with that. 

[jpd80]

13 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

I believe those 5 affordable products are pretty much all stuff planned for CE1 but I could be wrong. They could be including ICE and hybrids with that. 

Ford does not fully understand BEV buyers (how can anyone)

so it is making CE1 affordable with a modest sized battery

but I bet that most buyers will want/expect the long range

battery as a default standard.

Edited December 17, 2025 by jpd80

[pictor]

9 hours ago, jpd80 said:

Ford does not fully understand BEV buyers (how can anyone)

so it is making CE1 affordable with a modest sized battery

but I bet that most buyers will want/expect the long range

battery as a default standard.

I know I would, I wouldn't buy anything with les than 350 miles of range.  Mostly use the Tesla to drive to our summer place in Maine, round trip about 300 miles. The Maverick is used to haul the boat around twice a year(spring and Fall) . I would replace both the maverick and Tesla with one vehicle if had at least 350 mile range (not towing) and could haul a 19 ft CC 180 miles on a single charge and want the the size of F-150.  Full size trucks are not practical in the city.  Maybe the Rivian R2 to be release next year wil fill the bill, time will tell.  I'm  looking to see what the CE1 truck will do.  If it has good range and towing up to 3500 lbs, it could replace both my current vehicles,  Being retired, two cars is kinds wasteful, insurance cost could be cut in half.  

[akirby]

I think the base models will be 250-ish.  No different than base model cars having a tiny engine and no options.  Some buyers will get the cheapest version but most will upgrade to a few more options and longer range.

[jpd80]

3 hours ago, akirby said:

I think the base models will be 250-ish.  No different than base model cars having a tiny engine and no options.  Some buyers will get the cheapest version but most will upgrade to a few more options and longer range.

It’s more like selling a vehicle with a 7 gallon fuel tank with 1/8” filler hole and wondering why people are hesitant to buy what is otherwise a great vehicle.

Edited December 17, 2025 by jpd80

[akirby]

1 hour ago, jpd80 said:

It’s more like selling a vehicle with a 7 gallon fuel tank with 1/8” filler hole and wondering why people are hesitant to buy what is otherwise a great vehicle.

When Leaf came out with a $99 lease many years ago it sold like crazy even with limited range.  Never underestimate cheap.

Edited December 17, 2025 by akirby

[Biker16]

Profitability of this platform will be determined by how many Vehicles Ford can produce from it. Ford's track record with Platforms risks creating a White elephant platform, Like the Mustang, Explorer/Aviator, Mach-E. 

https://electrek.co/2025/08/11/fords-new-universal-ev-platform-is-a-game-changer-for-30k-evs/

[Sherminator98]

18 minutes ago, Biker16 said:

Profitability of this platform will be determined by how many Vehicles Ford can produce from it. Ford's track record with Platforms risks creating a White elephant platform, Like the Mustang, Explorer/Aviator, Mach-E. 

https://electrek.co/2025/08/11/fords-new-universal-ev-platform-is-a-game-changer-for-30k-evs/

 

And that was the whole point of making this a skunkworks project-so it wasn't encumbered by people making the same mistakes over and over again...hopefully just new ones 😛

 

[Biker16]

18 minutes ago, Sherminator98 said:

 

And that was the whole point of making this a skunkworks project-so it wasn't encumbered by people making the same mistakes over and over again...hopefully just new ones 😛

 

 
But if you develop an all new platform that spawns a single product, like the Mustang, is a mistake.

[akirby]

9 minutes ago, Biker16 said:

 
But if you develop an all new platform that spawns a single product, like the Mustang, is a mistake.

Its not number of models per se but total vehicle volume.  CE1 has at least 4 models planned.  Also the cheaper you can make the platform the less you need to sell to amortize it.

[akirby]

37 minutes ago, Biker16 said:

 
But if you develop an all new platform that spawns a single product, like the Mustang, is a mistake.

Good thing they announced at least 4.

[jpd80]

1 hour ago, Biker16 said:

 
But if you develop an all new platform that spawns a single product, like the Mustang, is a mistake.

It depends. If Ford already knew that it was moving away from cars, developing a sedan and a coupe was probably seen as a waste of money.

[jpd80]

1 hour ago, akirby said:

Its not number of models per se but total vehicle volume.  CE1 has at least 4 models planned.  Also the cheaper you can make the platform the less you need to sell to amortize it.

From Bikers link, Ford has sunk $5 billion into what I assume was CE1 project, Louisville reconfiguration and battery production….that’s a lot of money to recover.

 

Quote

Ford said it’s aiming for a starting price of around $30,000, with customer deliveries set to begin in 2027. The company invested around $5 billion into its Louisville Assembly Complex, creating nearly 4,000 jobs to deliver its new EV pickup and LFP batteries.

 

Edited December 17, 2025 by jpd80

[twintornados]

2 hours ago, Biker16 said:

 
But if you develop an all new platform that spawns a single product, like the Mustang, is a mistake.

 

cough-cough CD6 cough-cough

[akirby]

1 hour ago, twintornados said:

 

cough-cough CD6 cough-cough

Well technicaly that was two models.... 😆

[jpd80]

Making a derivative product off an existing platform is only feasible 

if more than 50% of the components are shared and even then the 

savings are only about 10% compared to a dedicated platform.

Holden learned this when it was commissioned to develop the Camaro

which had to be way more than a two door commodore sedan.

(Pontiac G8)

Edited December 18, 2025 by jpd80