Ford on Friday confirmed the mission identify for its next-generation electrical truck: Mission T3.
Brief for “Belief The Truck,” the mission goals to create a truck that’s “absolutely updatable, consistently bettering, and helps towing, hauling, exportable energy and infinite new improvements homeowners will need,” in line with a press launch from the automaker.
Mission T3 – future Ford electrical pickup mission
The announcement got here simply earlier than an occasion scheduled Friday to preview the corporate’s mammoth BlueOval Metropolis plant in Tennessee, which Ford says will probably be able to producing 500,000 electrical vehicles a 12 months at its peak charge.
That’s a number of instances the accelerated 150,000-per-year charge at which Ford plans to make the F-150 Lightning, and next-generation EVs from this plant will probably be a good portion of the two million EVs per 12 months Ford intends to make globally by late 2026.
BlueOval Metropolis building, March 2023
Ford has confirmed that a number of merchandise will probably be produced on the BlueOval Metropolis plant, together with from the Lincoln luxurious model. The mission, and accompanying imaginative and prescient, might have been underway by late 2021 amid very sturdy curiosity within the F-150 Lightning electrical pickup, even earlier than it had been delivered. Then, Ford confirmed that the next-generation truck could be constructed on a devoted EV platform and be made in “extremely excessive quantity.”
An announcement included in an accompanying launch, from CEO Jim Farley added some coloration in regards to the upcoming product.
“PJ O’Rourke as soon as described American pickups as ‘a again porch with an engine hooked up,’” mentioned Farley in an accompanying launch. “Properly, this new truck goes to be just like the Millennium Falcon—with a again porch hooked up.”
Future Ford autonomous driving interface teased at truck occasion
A teaser video briefly confirmed an inside which may be one other era of autos sooner or later—with a complicated assisted-driving interface that seems to stow away the steering controls solely, plus an augmented head-up show.
The long run truck to be in-built Tennessee will probably be fast and quiet, after all, however Farley additionally promised “exportable energy, far more than immediately.” And he hinted that software program updates will probably be an everyday factor, not an important day.
“Actually each morning you get in your truck that’s constructed right here, will probably be higher and totally different; it can find out how you utilize it,” elaborated Farley later, in an tackle from the long run plant location. “We’re going to ship software program to it each day, each week, yearly to make your truck higher.”
2022 Ford F-150 Lightning
That goes proper together with what Farley mentioned in February. Then, he additionally mentioned future Ford EVs will probably be “radically simplified” with fewer physique kinds, a restricted variety of construct combos, and a discount in weight and complexity—to do extra with the smallest battery pack attainable.
The corporate famous that BlueOval Metropolis is a key a part of having the ability to scale up EV manufacturing, making them extra accessible to prospects. Farley has mentioned that an EV worth battle may make the market extraordinarily aggressive—one thing which will have been unfolding out there in current months with Tesla’s across-the-board worth cuts and ensuing Mach-E worth reductions, for example.
Ford Blue Oval Metropolis – rendering of producing advanced in Tennessee, September 2021
Ford Blue Oval Metropolis – rendering of producing advanced in Tennessee, September 2021
Ford Blue Oval Metropolis – rendering of producing advanced in Tennessee, September 2021
Farley additional mentioned that the truck would be the product of a breakthrough manufacturing course of with “radical simplicity, value effectivity and high quality know-how.”
Vertical integration is constructed into the plant. Ford boasted that battery making will probably be intently aligned with manufacturing and the battery provider, SK On—to the extent that battery cells will probably be made, put into packs, and delivered in lower than half-hour to the meeting plant.
It’ll even have its personal upfit middle the place bedliners, toolboxes, and the like may be put in robotically.
The automaker along with SK On are investing $5.6 billion within the campus, and it’ll create about 6,000 new jobs. Will probably be the corporate’s first carbon-neutral manufacturing and battery campus. Within the case of the brand new Tennessee facility, it’s utilizing recovered warmth from the utility infrastructure plus a geothermal system. The corporate seeks to energy all of its vegetation with “renewable and carbon-free” electrical energy by 2035.
