Ok, What Is Going On With Ford’s New $30,000 Truck?

Ford put out a sleek, well-produced video bragging about how it was putting out a “bounty” on various things to save weight and improve the aerodynamics of its $30,000 electric truck. It’s the “the best part is no part” philosophy, and it extends to concepts as simple as having the small motor that adjusts the mirror double as the motor for sucking the mirrors in when you park, or as complex as replacing hundreds of fastners and pieces with a big “unicast” (I guess gigacasting isn’t the cool term anymore). There’s a lot of predictable, Tesla-or-Rivian-did-it-firstness here about advancements such as zonal architecture, and that’s good. Ford is learning from its predecessors. But there’s also an image here I keep thinking about, and I am intrigued by it.

If you somehow missed it, Ford decided that it was mostly cancelling its big electric vehicle plans and putting its eggs in a “skunkworks” plan for a Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) platform that could sit under a bunch of different models. This is Ford, so the first vehicle is going to be a truck, given that Ford only makes one single car, and that car kinda needs a V8. With the death of the Escape, Ford also needs something affordable-ish, and that means a $30,000 EV pickup. It’ll have an LFP battery, a cheaper battery chemistry than is in most cars, which means the company has to work a little harder to get the same range.

And work they shall. Here’s how Ford itself describes the process:

Historically, engineers in traditional automotive companies can be siloed in departments that match the component or system they are assigned to. They’re expected to advocate for the part they are working on while decreasing its cost, often without the context of understanding how it impacts the customer’s experience or performance of the vehicle.

For example, the aerodynamics team always wants a lower roof for less aerodynamic drag; the occupant package team wants a higher roof for more headroom, while the interiors team wants to decrease the cabin size to reduce the cost. Usually, these groups negotiate until they find a middle ground, one that inevitably ends in a tradeoff led by yet another department tasked with making tradeoffs on behalf of the customer.

Bounties change the negotiation, making the true cost of a tradeoff much clearer by connecting it to a specific value tied to the range and battery cost. Now, the aerodynamics team and interior team share the same goal, and both understood that adding even 1mm to the roof height would mean $1.30 in additional battery cost or .055 miles of range. With bounties, each team has a common objective to maximize range while decreasing battery cost — a direct linkage to giving our customers more.

That’s fun, and all, but that means a truck that almost certainly does not look like a regular truck. Right? And this image, which may or may not be real, has me wondering what that’s going to be:

There’s a clear delinator marking a bed, so presumably it has one of those. I do think the bed also looks quite small, which makes me think that it probably has a midgate. Is there a flying buttress there? It’s hard to tell. Jason has written about the Ford Bronco Lobo concept, which did have a pretty aggressive flying buttress setup:

I’m not sure this is that, but it does have me wondering. BTW, it’s worth pointing out that our own Adrian Clarke gave us a preview of what it might look like based on Ford’s existing design language and some other hints:

Here’s how Adrian described it:

It’s a safe bet this new truck is not going to be aimed at the heartland F-150 customer, so what do we think it could look like? I’ve written before about how fewer and simpler parts help lower the Bill of Materials (the total cost of all the parts in a car), but here we must deal with the specter of aerodynamics. Aero efficiency is more important for electric vehicles because it makes up something like 80% of their overall efficiency. With ICE vehicles, this number is much lower at around 30%. So even though a truck might not appear to be the most aerodynamic shape, the reality is aero count is gained and lost by things like flushness, sealing, and as few openings as possible. Another factor to consider is that drag doesn’t really come into effect until about 40-50 mph.

I agree, although the potentially misleading aerodynamic graphic below has a way rounder and pod-like nose than you’d expect from a truck. Even the Maverick is fairly slab-nosed.

I guess the Santa Cruz gets away with not having a traditional truck-like front:

Even looking at that, it looks more truck-y than what the Ford truck could look like. Here’s a version of it from Peter:

In this version, which is more expertly done, you get a lot more bed, but maybe at the expense of headroom.

Here’s the full video if you think there’s more here I’m missing:

Again, I don’t have the answers. I’m just asking the question. How weird is this thing going to look? How weird can Ford get away with it looking?

I’m intrigued and excited.

H/T to zestyg in the Autopian Discord! 

Top graphic image: Ford