Ford recently revealed it has a “skunkworks” team working on developing new low-cost electric vehicles (EVs).
According to TechCrunch, the Michigan-based company’s efforts were revealed in a recent earnings call by its CEO, Jim Farley. The CEO made a reference during the call to a “skunkworks” team working on creating “low-cost” EVs.
“We made a bet in silence two years ago,” Farley reportedly said during the earnings call. “We developed a super-talented skunkworks team to create a low-cost EV platform. It was a small group, small team, some of the best EV engineers in the world, and it was separate from the Ford mothership. It was a start-up.”
TechCrunch also reports the skunkworks team is led by Alan Clarke, who worked at Tesla for 12 years before joining Ford to work on advanced EV development. The team is based in Irvine, California, with engineers from Auto Motive Power (AMP), an energy management company that Ford acquired last year.
Ford’s profits are still mainly from gas-powered and hybrid vehicles. Ford reported revenue of $46 billion USD (about $61.9 billion CAD) in the fourth quarter of 2023. Ford e, its EV unit, accounted for $1.6 billion USD (about $2.1 billion CAD) of that revenue. In January, Ford announced plans to cut production back on the F-150 Lightning from two lines to one in April. Ford claimed the move was “to achieve optimal balance of production, sales growth and profitability,” though the company does expect continued growth in global EV sales this year, just not as much as anticipated.
Ford’s move here may be signalling the company sees low-cost EVs as being what it needs to increase its global EV sales in the long-term future. Tesla is reportedly working on bringing into production a new EV in 2025, and it could be the entry-level $25,000 USD (about $33,800 CAD) EV that Elon Musk has spoken about in the past.
There’s no word on when Ford will reveal any of the low-cost EVs its skunkworks team is developing.
Ford’s Oakville, Ontario plant will start to undergo an EV transformation later this year, with production beginning in 2025.
Source: TechCrunch Via: The Verge
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