According to a press statement from Ford, the company desires to build a vehicle that is “completely updatable, continually evolving, and enables towing, hauling, exportable power, and limitless new improvements owners will demand.”
The announcement comes just days before a preview event for Ford’s massive BlueOval City facility in Tennessee, which the firm claims would be capable of producing 500,000 electric trucks per year at total capacity.
That’s many times the expedited 150,000-per-year rate at which Ford wants to produce the F-150 Lightning, and next-generation EVs from this factory will account for a sizable chunk of the 2 million EVs per year Ford plans to produce globally by late 2026.
Ford has announced that several items, including those from the Lincoln premium brand, will be manufactured in the BlueOval City factory. The project, and its associated vision, may have begun by late 2021, owing to considerable interest in the F-150 Lightning electric pickup even before it was delivered. The next-generation truck, according to Ford, would be constructed on a dedicated EV platform and produced in “extremely large numbers.”
A Statement From Ford CEO Jim Farley Published in An Accompanying Announcement Provided More İnformation On The Impending Product
“PJ O’Rourke famously described American trucks as a ‘back porch with an engine attached,'” Farley stated in a press statement. “Now, this new vehicle will be like the Millenium Falcon—complete with a rear porch.”
In a teaser video, a possible future interior was briefly shown. It included an upgraded assisted-driving interface that appeared to completely stow away the steering wheel as well as an enhanced head-up display.
Naturally, the Tennessee-based company’s future truck will be speedy and quiet, but Farley also promised “exportable power, much more than today.” Moreover, he made a suggestion that software upgrades would not be a one-time event but rather something that would happen frequently.
BlueOval City is A Critical Construction For EV Production
In a subsequent speech from the site of the future facility, Farley said, “Your vehicle that was made here will literally be better and different every morning; it will learn how you use it. “To improve your vehicle, we’re going to send software to it every day, every week, and every year.”
That is completely consistent with what Farley stated in February. Then, he said that in order to fit more power into the smallest battery pack feasible, future Ford EVs would be “radically streamlined” with fewer body designs, fewer construction choices, and a reduction in weight and complexity.
The company stated that in order to scale up EV production and increase customer accessibility, BlueOval City is a critical part. Farley has stated that an EV price war might make the industry incredibly competitive; this may have already begun to happen in the market in recent months as seen by Tesla’s huge price drops and the subsequent price decreases for the Mach-E, for example.
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