Sitting in a nondescript facility just north of the city’s airport, employees working in this skunkworks facility are harnessing the brand’s tremendously deep experience in vehicle manufacturing by putting almost all of its UEV platform development under one roof. | Image: Ford Ford isn't sending the clearest signals regarding its EV future. We got a glimpse of its Universal EV (UEV) Project last February, but then it pulled the plug on the F-150 Lightning, which is regarded as one of the more successful electric pickup trucks to date. The climate surrounding electric vehicles hasn't helped, either, between loosening emissions rules, tariffs, and the elimination of the federal EV tax credit. But recently, after touring Ford's less-than-two-year-old Electric Vehicle Development Center (EVDC) located in Long Beach, California, I have a better sense of the company's current position. Ford s
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Inside the lab where Ford is trying to crack the code on cheap EVs
Ford’s Electric Vehicle Development Center in Long Beach is betting its survival on a unified UEV platform—consolidating battery packs, motors, and software into a single, scalable architecture—to slash costs by 30% and undercut rivals like Tesla and BYD. By killing the F-150 Lightning and pivoting to modular, high-volume production, the skunkworks team is gambling that economies of scale, not subsidies, will finally make EVs profitable. AI-assisted, human-reviewed.
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