We Have A Lot More Details

• Ford is preparing to launch its Universal Electric Vehicle platform, its next-gen EV architecture.
• The first model on the platform will be a mid-size electric truck with a starting price around $30,000.
• It’ll have a 400-volt battery, a 48-volt power system, a true software-defined architecture and an LFP battery.

Ford needs an electric-vehicle reset.

Its attempt to own the EV truck market, the original Ford F-150 Lighting, ended in that model’s cancellation amid concerns over its high price, poor towing performance and chronic unprofitability. And while the Mustang Mach-E electric crossover has sold in high volumes, it alone can’t be some EV takeoff point as Ford’s own CEO repeatedly sounds the alarm about the threat to its business from Chinese newcomers. 

But Ford says all of those lessons will add up to make this, the upcoming Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) platform. It’s set to launch in 2027 with a midsize truck that’s said to start around $30,000 but still offers the features modern EV shoppers want, like a frunk, lots of passenger space, solid range and performance and cutting-edge software.

If Ford’s warnings about China Inc. are to be taken seriously, then the UEV had better work, especially since the automaker is now dialing back most of its other EV plans. But in a media briefing last week, Ford executives released more details about the truck, the platform, and their efforts to pass cost savings onto customers while finally delivering an EV that’s profitable, too. Here’s what we know. 

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Source: Ford

The Idea: Start With A Truck, Make It Slippery

Ford started with a good idea. American consumers love trucks, so kicking off electrification plans with an all-electric pickup sounded smart, executives and engineers said.

It is, but only if Ford can offer something better than what buyers can get on the internal-combustion market. The F-150 Lightning struggled with that, as it looked and felt a lot like a gas truck, but with a much higher price tag and less endurance. 

Ford says it’s not making that mistake again. The company is launching its moonshot EV platform with what’s effectively a battery-powered equivalent to the massively popular Ford Maverick. Truck fans may bluster at calling such a vehicle a “truck,” as the Maverick’s car-based platform and softer shape is less brutish than traditional F-150s and Rangers. But the Maverick’s popularity speaks for itself. 

Expect the UEV truck to blur the line further, as Ford says ultra-slippery aerodynamics were crucial to this program. 

Some design sketches of the UEV truck.

Photo by: Ford

Batteries still account for the largest proportion of production costs, so reducing the truck’s coefficient of drag and frontal area were top priorities. In other words, if engineers couldn’t pare back the battery without impacting their range goals, they had to boost range by reducing aerodynamic drag. That meant reworking a design constantly with rapid prototyping and new components, chasing tiny changes that added up to serious changes.  

Ford says its system of “bounties” that assigned direct battery-cost estimates to every decision helped engineers internalize this fundamental shift.

But if people already question whether the Maverick is a truck, expect a similar news cycle for this thing when we see the final design. Anything 15% more slippery than a Maverick is bound to have soft edges and some interesting bodywork smoothing airflow around and over the bed.

Ford says it’ll still have the usability of a compact truck, but based on the limited silhouette images the company released, it may not look quite like one. 

‘The Best Part Is No Part’

Ford says consolidating the power mirror and folding functions into one central motor is good for an extra 1.5 miles of range.

Photo by: Ford

And then there was the Tesla-esque approach championed by veterans of that company tapped for the project, like Alan Clarke, now Ford’s executive director of advanced vehicle development. One common Tesla-ism at work: The best part is no part. The second-best part is one that serves multiple functions.

As one example, Ford points to the truck’s mirrors, which use the same motor for power folding as they do for adjustment. This allowed them to reduce the size of the mirror by over 20%. 

That alone is good for 1.5 miles of range, Ford claims. The company also says the Maverick-sized truck will be 15% more aerodynamically efficient than the next most efficient truck design on sale, which is, naturally, the Maverick.

Use Software To Save Money

If you read these pages often, you know that the race to create true software-defined vehicles is as messy and important as the race to create affordable EVs. In fact, as Clarke told me, you need the former if you want the latter. Consumers may not care about the nuts and bolts of a true software-defined architecture versus a traditionally designed vehicle, but they’ll care about the benefits.

“The most important thing they get [from a software-defined vehicle] is low cost,” Clarke told me. “That’s what they’re going to see. There’s less vehicle content that they don’t care about, so that we can put more money into the vehicle content that they do care about.”

While traditional cars often have dozens of electronic control units (ECUs) that don’t or can’t talk to one another, with software written by suppliers, SDVs from companies like Tesla and Rivian use centralized computing systems, with high-speed communication between different nodes. They control every bit of software in the car, making it easier to upgrade things over the air or use the same sensor for multiple functions.  

Alan Clarke, an Apple vet, is leading Ford’s next-gen EV project.

Photo by: Ford

For a company like Ford, which has decades of experience doing things the old way, it was natural to go that route with its first few EVs. But cutting out all of those ECUs and all of the redundant wiring involved saves a lot of money, and owning the software gives you a lot more flexibility to offer the snappy, intuitive tech features consumers expect.

It moves the complexity from the hardware realm, where you need to understand the limitations of a dozen different wholly built ECUs, to the software realm. There, engineers could add interconnections that would never exist in a hardware-defined system. In the UEV platform, all of the complicated software interactions are processed on local controllers, or on domain-specific nerve centers like the “E-Box,” which combines all of the power control and charging hardware into one place.

So the UEV platform is a true SDV, through and through. Ford owns all of the software, Clarke said, and has a level of upgradeability and control more on par with a Tesla or Chinese EV than a traditional Ford product. 

“I think ultimately, that’s number one, is they’re going to see a low-cost vehicle, but the second is that they’re going to see that it’s not stripped down, and that there’s a whole bunch of feature content,” he said. “Because it’s a software-defined vehicle, it’s going to continue to get better over time, with more feature content and more capability for their vehicle.” 

Photo by: Ford

Offer Over-the-Air Updates, But For Real This Time

If you own an EV from a legacy brand, chances are you were told when you bought it that it was “capable” of over-the-air updates. This is true in a literal sense, but the importance and cadence of updates for most of them have been abysmal. When new features are added, they are often added one model at a time, whereas Tesla, Rivian and the like push broad, vehicle-wide updates to their entire fleets with regularity.

There are two main reasons for this: First, many automakers’ EVs may have common components, but the lack of end-to-end commonality means updates happen in a piecemeal fashion. I’ve experienced this myself: When General Motors added video streaming apps to some of its EVs, it took nearly a year to reach others, and still isn’t on every car. Ford says this will be solved by a true common software platform on the UEV platform, which will underpin up to eight different vehicles.

The second issue is what Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president for vehicle hardware, calls “people putty.” Because Ford doesn’t control the entire software stack on vehicles like the F-150 Lightning and Mach-E, pushing an update requires direct communication between humans at a variety of suppliers.

“So we have ‘people putty’ that glues together all these various interfaces,” Poon said. “Because, literally, we need people to communicate amongst people because of these, these massive, complex interfaces. Alan’s team doesn’t need those. All they’re focused on is just functional execution.” 

Photo by: Ford

Use LFP Batteries, Made In America

Anyone who follows the Chinese EV industry knows one battery chemistry dominates there: Lithium-iron phosphate, or LFP. While the nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) or nickel cobalt manganese aluminum (NCMA) batteries that dominate Western supply chains are more energy dense, LFP cells are cheaper, more stable, last longer and require fewer precious materials. Ford will use this chemistry for the UEV platform, and claims that its LFP cells should be the cheapest in America.

Picking 400, Not 800 Volts

Many automakers are transitioning to more advanced 800-volt architectures for their next-generation EVs. Not Ford. While 800-volt systems offer some efficiency and weight-saving advantages, their main benefit is ultra-fast charging speeds. Clarke says that Ford considered an 800-volt system, but charging speed isn’t the main priority here; cost is. 

“If you were to go to 800 volts, the cost would be, like, 20% higher, right? Just because you have to, like, shrink the size of the cells by half, right, to be able to accomplish what you need to accomplish,” Poon said. “So that’s why, in this particular case, we really want to focus on affordability with no compromises. The 400-volt system delivers that.”

Upgrade The Electronics & ADAS

Ford wanted the cheapest possible battery for the car, which is why an 800-volt system was off the table. But that doesn’t mean the company is doing electronics the old-fashioned way. Most cars use a 12-volt system to power low-voltage electronics, like the screens, driver assist functions and accessories.

But the UEV platform will use Ford’s first 48-volt system, which allows the company to reduce wiring costs, upgrade efficiency and supply more power to critical components, like the automated driving assistance system. That’s important, as Ford says the UEV platform will eventually offer eyes-off autonomous driving.

Ford has not said how it plans to achieve that, however, or if the UEV products will use lidar or not. And several automakers have pushed back their most ambitious autonomy goals lately. Until we know more, that promise may be best with a grain of salt. 

Use The Battery As The Floor

The UEV platform will also use Ford’s first structural battery. While Clarke stopped short of calling it cell-to-body, as the cells are still in a distinct pack, the seats and interior components bolt straight onto the pack. There’s no more separation between floor and pack, which allowed Ford to give the UEV a lower roofline. That helps deliver the intended effect: better aero, more range, no huge battery required. 

The seats in UEV-platform vehicles bolt directly onto the pack, which is also the floor of the vehicle.

Photo by: Ford

Finally: A Systematic Approach

The biggest takeaway, then, is how interconnected all of these formerly separate fiefdoms are in the electric age. The traditional car design process was very silo’d, with conflicting interests fighting to find the best compromise. But these days, Ford engineers said, making a world-class EV means the entire system must be optimized around minimizing energy usage to maximize efficiency and cutting battery costs.

But the proof ultimately isn’t in big talk—it’s in building an EV that pairs world-class efficiency with excellent software and a can’t-beat price. We’ll find out next year if Ford can deliver.

Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com.