Ford to follow Tesla Cybertruck with electrical tech in new EV pickup

DETROIT — Ford Motor's $5 billion "bet" on its next generation of all-electric vehicles will feature a budding technology that Tesla commercialized in the U.S. on its Cybertruck, the Detroit automaker said Tuesday.

The system, known as a 48-volt electrical architecture, had been discussed in the automotive industry for decades but Tesla was the first to bring it to consumers in 2023.

The auto industry has historically used a 12-volt system with a lead-acid battery for all vehicles to power the car's accessories — but that's been problematic and caused recalls for many EVs. The new architecture instead uses the EV's high-voltage battery to power everything.

The 48-volt system improves efficiency, allows for additional electrical bandwidth and saves weight through the reduction of wiring, officials have said. The power also can be "stepped down" to 12 volts, when needed, through the use of new electronic control units, or ECUs, that handle different groups of an EV's architecture.

The new electrical system is one of many innovations that Ford believes will allow its next-generation EVs — starting with a $30,000 small electric pickup truck in 2027 — to compete against Tesla as well as rapidly expanding Chinese brands in global markets.

"At Ford, we took on the challenge many others have stopped doing. We're taking the fight to our competition, including the Chinese," Ford CEO Jim Farley said during an August event at a plant in Kentucky that will produce the unnamed electric pickup. "For too long, legacy automakers played it safe."

Farley has called it a "Model T moment" for the company, referring to the company's flagship vehicle that came out more than a century ago and led to the mass adoption of vehicles during the early 1900s. He's also called it a "bet" for Ford given the amount of changes it will make to the EVs as well as the company and its processes.

Ford expects the new EVs, which will be based on a common "Universal Electric Vehicle," or UEV, to have comparable costs to gas-powered vehicles through new technologies and efficiencies. Currently, the massive batteries that power EVs have made them far more expensive to produce and have been infamously unprofitable.

The Detroit automaker has said the new EVs will reduce parts by 20% versus a typical vehicle, with 25% fewer fasteners, 40% fewer workstations dock-to-dock in the plant and 15% faster assembly time.

"It represents the most radical change on how we design and how we build vehicles at Ford since the Model T," Farley said at the plant. "Now is time to change the game once again."

Ford said those improvements, as well as price points that are more similar to gas-powered models, will lead to greater adoption of EVs. That's despite a significant slowdown in U.S. EV sales amid changes to federal support by the Trump administration as well as less-than-expected consumer adoption.

U.S. EV sales peaked in September, ahead of the federal incentives ending, at 10.3% of the new vehicle market, according to Cox Automotive. That demand plummeted to preliminary estimates of 5.8% during the fourth quarter.

Those market conditions recently led Ford to announce $19.5 billion in write-downs, largely related to a pullback in EV plans, but the company said it will continue to invest $5 billion for its new UEV platform through 2027.

"Our focus has been on giving them everything they would get in a nice vehicle and more, and we think that that will allow us to ultimately not just make an affordable vehicle, but make one that's extremely desirable," Alan Clarke, Ford's executive director of advanced EV development, said during a media briefing.

The 48-volt system provides significant benefits to other parts of the vehicle aside from just the battery and is expected to continue to do so as the bandwidth of 12-volt batteries gets maxed out, according Clarke, a former Tesla executive.

"It's less expensive, has smaller wires and is the future of automotive," he said. "So, if you want to future-protect this platform to exist for more than a decade … it's very clear that 48 made the most sense."

Ford said the wiring harness in the new midsize truck will be more than 4,000 feet shorter and 22 pounds lighter than the wiring harness used in Ford's first-generation electric SUV.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent competitors such as Ford and General Motors a "how-to" guide on developing a 48-volt system in 2023.

Clarke said Ford had already decided on a 48-volt platform before getting the letter but that it "certainly added fuel to the fire" and was a "helpful starting point to see how they thought about" it. It also helped suppliers get ready to assist with 48-volt systems, he added.

In addition to the 48-volt system, the company on Tuesday released additional details on how it's achieving its targets with the new EV through aerodynamics, team "bounties" to increase vehicle efficiency and turning to Tesla-pioneered "gigacastings."

Gigacasting is a manufacturing process that can replace dozens of traditionally small, stamped parts with larger pieces. The process requires massive machines to pressurize large sheets of metal into parts such as a vehicle's facia or underlying structure.

Ford said the new pickup will only have two structural front and rear parts compared with 146 such components on its current gas-powered Maverick small pickup.

Ford also said its aluminum castings for the upcoming EV are more than 27% lighter than those features on a Tesla Model Y.

"We're still on a really steep decline of EV costs, and you can only get that by innovating, and you can only get that by system level, optimizing into what eventually becomes a product that a customer wants," Clarke said.