Ford Turns To F1 And Bounties To Build A $30,000 Electric Truck - Beritaja

Ford is promising to present an EV motortruck adjacent twelvemonth that starts astatine $30,000 and could compete pinch Chinese automakers without undermining profit margins. A operation of 3D-printed Lego-like parts, Formula 1 thinking, and a bounty programme will thief the institution deed that target, Ford said Tuesday. 

It will person to. Ford took a $19.5 cardinal hit successful December and ended accumulation of its battery-electric F-150 Lightning. It can’t spend for this caller EV business strategy to autumn flat. 

Ford’s stake connected a statement of affordable EVs began respective years agone pinch a skunkworks team led by Alan Clarke, a 12-year Tesla veteran. Pieces of its scheme were revealed past August, erstwhile Ford said it would ditch its accepted moving assembly statement and invest $2 billion successful its Louisville mill to adopt a caller accumulation strategy that promises to velocity up manufacturing by 15%. 

The institution said astatine the clip that its statement of EVs would beryllium built connected a cosmopolitan level pinch single-piece aluminum unicastings — ample components formed arsenic 1 portion to destruct parts and let for faster assembly — and lithium robust phosphate batteries pinch tech licensed from China’s CATL.

Now, Ford is sharing much specifics successful a flurry of blog and societal media posts connected really it will fulfill its committedness of a desirable EV motortruck that will beryllium $20,000 cheaper than the mean caller conveyance and while still generating profits. Ford didn’t stock specs for illustration the range, features, aliases charging times of this early EV. But it did uncover really it plans to build lighter, cheaper, much businesslike EVs made pinch less parts.

It each starts pinch the cosmopolitan EV platform, aliases UEV. The level will underpin a mid-sized motortruck first, past could support a sedan, crossover, three-row SUV, and moreover mini commercialized vans, according to Clarke. The UEV is Ford’s first “clean sheet” EV built from the crushed up — a strategical displacement for the company, which built its Mustang Mach-E and the Lightning EVs utilizing existing infrastructure and manufacturing practices. 

“It’s a level that is built about efficiency,” Clarke said successful a briefing pinch the media. “It’s built about affordability to beryllium capable to make long-range electrical conveyance recreation affordable to much people.” 

To execute that, Clarke group retired to create a caller civilization seeded by talent from Formula 1 and companies for illustration Apple, Lucid Motors, Rivian, and Tesla, arsenic good arsenic Auto Motive Power, a startup acquired by Ford successful 2023. The team, which includes about 450 group astatine its guidelines successful Long Beach, California, and 200 group successful an agency successful Palo Alto, besides adopted a bounty programme to thief engineers understand really their day-to-day decisions effect the customer and the extremity product, Clarke said successful an question and reply pinch reporters. 

The attraction of the bounty programme was efficiency. Numerical metrics were assigned to each facet of the UEV including conveyance mass, aerodynamic drag, and moreover circumstantial conveyance parts. In practice, this meant Ford mightiness determine to usage a much costly portion if it helped alteration the weight of the EV, thereby making it much businesslike and costs effective. 

“We’ve been very focused connected making judge that the costs that we’re moving from the merchandise doesn’t region value,” Clarke said. One illustration is that moreover the guidelines trim of the EV motortruck will person a power-folding mirror, a premium characteristic connected about vehicles, because it decreases aerodynamic drag, according to Clarke. The institution saved money by utilizing 1 motor, alternatively of two, to grip the reflector accommodation and the folding. 

Image Credits:Ford

That obsession pinch ratio included a squad of ex-Formula 1 engineers who worked intimately pinch Ford’s creation team. The result, according to Ford, is simply a mid-sized EV motortruck that is 15% much aerodynamically businesslike than immoderate different pickup motortruck connected the marketplace today. 

This squad of erstwhile F1 engineers utilized 3D-printed and machined parts to create a Lego-like build for its trial vehicle. Thousands of 3D-printed components, which are meticulous wrong fractions of a millimeter of Ford’s simulations and could beryllium swapped retired successful minutes, were utilized to measurement aerodynamics. These Lego-like prototypes were utilized successful upwind passageway testing early connected — and often — to measurement aerodynamics, a process that Ford traditionally utilized only erstwhile the creation of a conveyance was about complete.

A earthy spot to attraction was connected the battery, which could relationship for about 40% of a vehicle’s full expense. A lighter, much businesslike conveyance allows Ford to usage a smaller battery, which reduces cost. The extremity result, according to Clarke, will beryllium an EV motortruck pinch about 15% much range, aliases 50 miles, than an balanced pickup powered by gas.

The ratio push besides led the squad to adopt manufacturing strategies adopted and popularized by Tesla, including the usage of aluminum unicastings and moving from a 12-volt strategy to a 48-volt powerfulness strategy that will beryllium utilized for immoderate conveyance functions. 

Ford besides upended the electrical conveyance architecture of the UEV, taking a zonal attack akin to Tesla and Rivian. Instead of scattering dozens of physics power units (ECUs), aliases computers, passim the vehicle, Ford has integrated aggregate conveyance functions into 5 main modules. This reduces complexity, cost, and copper usage and helped make the EV truck’s ligament harness 4,000 feet shorter and 22 pounds lighter than 1 of its first-generation electrical vehicles, according to Luccas De Tullio, a package technologist astatine Ford who antecedently worked astatine Auto Motive Power.

De Tullio said the institution carried the aforesaid accuracy to the powerfulness physics components, uncovering ways to stock components and trim parts pinch a azygous module that manages powerfulness distribution, artillery management, and provides AC powerfulness backmost to a customer’s location during an outage.

Ford besides developed its ain package for those 5 main ECUs, down to the exertion layer, according to Clarke. Because Ford owns the package — to the lowest level — it becomes very portable, Clarke said.

“Other than being capable to power the infotainment, what shows up connected the screens, [and] really you interact pinch the vehicle, each of the assemblage controls past are straight coupled,” he said. “So you could ideate that galore of the experiences that could only beryllium created by coupling each the different sensors about the conveyance are now astatine our fingertips and nether our ain control.”