The Magic Behind Ford’s $30,000 Electric Pickup

The Ford Maverick is one of the automaker’s all-time greatest hits.In the four years that it has been on sale, the small pickup has earned its place on a list of breakthrough vehicles that includes the Mustang, Taurus, and, yes, the Model T.Trucks are Ford’s specialty, but the Maverick is unlike any it had made before. It looks like a pickup, but drives like a car and is available in a hybrid version rated at 38 mpg.The starting price was $19,995 when it was launched in 2022, but it has since increased to $28,145 due to many factors, including parts supply costs and tariffs on the Mexican-made model. Sales have doubled despite this, and Ford, quite literally, still can’t build enough to keep up with demand. It is now trying to capture lightning in a bottle once again.Ford is developing what it calls the Universal Electric Vehicle platform. As the name suggests, it can be used for any type of vehicle, but it will first be sold in 2027 as a Maverick-sized pickup with a target price of $30,000 built at a factory in Kentucky. That is the plan, at least.Batteries are expensive. The $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicle purchases that was discontinued last year was meant to cover the cost. Now, automakers that want to continue selling electric cars and trucks need to figure out how to make them competitively priced on their own. The team working on the Universal Electric Vehicle released a video presentation that pulls back the curtain on how it is attempting to do that.“An electric vehicle’s battery can account for about 40% of its total expense, which is a major barrier to affordability,” Alan Clarke, Ford’s Universal EV platform leader, explained.Ford released this image of the Universal Electric Vehicle hidden under a sheet to preview its design. Ford“Thousands of people globally are working on reducing the cost of batteries from the raw materials all the way to the ways that they’re manufactured to make them more affordable. But it’s important to work in parallel on reducing the size of the battery in an electric vehicle.”Aerodynamic efficiency is key to this. Ford hasn’t displayed the vehicle in full yet, but a computer rendering of how the air flows around it includes a ghostly outline of its body. It has a lower, more rounded nose than Ford’s other pickups, a tapered roof, small side mirrors and a smooth underbody. It has a traditional flat-top cargo bed, but the air passes right over it instead of getting caught and creating drag.“To the air, it’s no longer a truck,” said aerodynamicist Saleem Merkt in the video.The body design alone contributes to a 30% improvement in highway driving range, which allows for a significantly smaller battery pack, but Ford also reimagined the way it makes the things that go inside of it.The Universal Electric Vehicle chassis is comprised of three main sections. There is a central frame that houses the battery under the passenger compartment and two subframes that attach to it at the front and the rear for the motors and wheels. While the analogous subframes in the Maverick are comprised of 146 individual parts, the Universal Electric Vehicle’s are each a single cast piece of aluminum, or “unicasting.” This trims weight, resulting in an even smaller battery requirement, and speeds up the assembly process, cutting manufacturing costs.“Our engineering team had a philosophy. The best part is no part. If the part is necessary, then it must serve multiple purposes,” vehicle structure team leader Vlad Bogachuck said.The electric motors are the most efficient Ford has ever designed, and the vehicle’s electrical system uses less wiring and fewer computer modules than its previous electric vehicles. All of this helps Ford toward its goal of hitting that $30,000 target.It has a year to get there, but things move quickly in the automotive industry these days, for better or worse. Just look at that Maverick price.

The Magic Behind Ford’s $30,000 Electric Pickup

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