Ford on Friday confirmed the project name for its next-generation electric truck: Project T3.
According to the automaker’s press release, which stands for “Trust The Truck,” the project aims to create a truck that is “fully up-to-date, continually improving, and supporting towing, hauling, exportable power and loads of new innovations that owners will want.”
BlueOval City Building, March 2023
The announcement comes just before an event scheduled for Friday to preview the company’s massive BlueOval City plant in Tennessee, which Ford says will be capable of producing 500,000 electric trucks a year at a rate of about 500,000. highest level.
This is many times the 150,000 vehicles per year that Ford intends to do. Lightning F-150and next-generation electric vehicles from the plant will be a key part of the 2 million electric vehicles per year Ford plans to produce globally by the end of 2026.
Ford F-150 Lightning 2022 pre-production
Ford has confirmed that many products will be manufactured at the BlueOval City plant, including from luxury brand Lincoln. The project and the accompanying vision could already be underway by the end of 2021 amid great interest in the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck, even before it’s delivered. Then, Ford confirmed that the next-generation truck would be built on a dedicated EV platform and manufactured in “extremely high volume.”
The company provided no further details about the upcoming electric truck ahead of the factory event, although a statement included in CEO Jim Farley’s release did add some color.
“PJ O’Rourke once described an American pickup truck as ‘a rear porch with an engine,” Farley said. “Well, this new truck will be like the Millennium Falcon—with a rear porch.”
Farley adds that the truck will be the product of a breakthrough manufacturing process with “radical simplicity, cost savings and quality technology”.
Ford F-150 Lightning 2022
That aligns with what Farley said in February. Then he also said Future Ford EVs will be “radically simplified”” with fewer body styles, a limited number of build combinations, and reduced weight and complexity—to do more with the smallest possible battery pack.
The company notes that BlueOval City is an important part of being able to scale up production of electric vehicles, making them more accessible to customers. Farley said that a electric car price war can make the market extremely competitive—something that may have happened in the market in recent months with Tesla’s Comprehensive Discount and next Mach-E DiscountFor example.
Ford Blue Oval City – rendering of manufacturing complex in Tennessee, September 2021
Ford Blue Oval City – rendering of manufacturing complex in Tennessee, September 2021
Ford Blue Oval City – rendering of manufacturing complex in Tennessee, September 2021
Vertical integration is integrated into the factory. Ford boasts that battery production will be so closely linked with battery manufacturing and supplier, SK On—that the cells will be manufactured, packaged, and shipped to the assembly plant within minutes. less than 30 minutes.
It will also have its own refit center where bed sheets, toolboxes and the like can be installed by robots.
The automaker along with SK On is investing $5.6 billion in the campus and it will create about 6,000 new jobs. This will be the company’s first carbon-neutral battery and production facility. In the case of the new facility in Tennessee, it is using heat recovered from utility infrastructure plus a geothermal system. The company seeks to power all of its plants with “renewable and carbon-free” electricity by 2035.
