08 12 25 Engadget Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar on new Ford electric pickup truck

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jeremy News Time five nineteen, Ford investing five billion dollars
in its EV electric vehicle production and that includes more
affordable EV options.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
With that announcement, the company plans to deliver a new
Ford electric pickup truck starting at thirty thousand dollars. Joining
us now on the KWA Common Spirit Hall Hotline for
our Tech Tuesday chat is Devendra Hartowar, Senior editor at
n Gadget. Devendra, thank you so much for your time
this morning. I think we got to start with the
biggest question here that everybody's asking, How in the world
can you make a pickup truck, an EV pickup truck

(00:31):
so affordable at thirty thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hey, good morning. I think that's the question we're all asking.
What Ford announced yesterday is that it's basically building a
whole new universal platform that can be used to make
these trucks more efficiently and make any sort of car really,
So they're completely rethinking the production line, you know, the
thing Ford has been known for since the Model T
and it's a new platform, but should be. It's not

(00:57):
just a single line. It's apparently like they're going to
be able to build a Hunt and back in the
middle of these cars and then sandwich them together at
the end and you know, hopefully lower costs when it
comes to overall production. They're also working on battery technology
that's supposed to be more efficient and cheaper than existing
ones right now, that's LFP batteries.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
I'm assuming they have to. Well, one, they're doing this
because they want to be viable in the space, but
they have to do this as well, Devendra, because a
lot of the incentives that are coming from state and
federal governments are going away because of recent policies.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, you know, making a cheaper EV
is kind of the goal for everybody right now. There
was recently Slate Auto which announced that they were trying
to make a twenty thousand dollars EV, but that one
included the tax credit. So now you know, between Slate
and Ford, we're seeing a lot of interest around a
thirty thousand dollars you know, pretty functional EV.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Who's the target audience here? I mean, do we have
a demand for an electric vehicle pickup truck? Because when
I think of the average pickup truck driver, I'm not
thinking of somebody who's really considering an electric vehicle. Is
it more of those electric vehicle people that are looking
for pickup trucks.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
It kind of seems like, you know, Ford is doing
something interesting, is trying to target everybody. This car is
going to have, you know, the space of a wrap
four suv, but it's going to have the flatbed of
a truck. It's going to have a front of front
trunk called a front upfront, so it should be something
for everybody. They already have the F one fifty Lightning
as a big SUV that's or a big pickup EV.

(02:22):
So it's trying to do something for everybody, but also
trying to be distinctly for it. That's kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Who is the battery technology through and from? Is this
a Ford thing or as you say, is just a
joint with somebody else. I know Mercedes Benz is making
a lot of the EV batteries.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, so they already announced that they're investing three billion
dollars in the Blue Oval Battery Park in Michigan. So
Ford is making its own batteries, but it's also based
on technology from China, so they're not it's not really
a partnership. But you know that could be a problem
with government incentives down the line because some of this
tech is coming from China. But Ford is building this
all on their own, so they're trying to make this
all in house, and partially that's going to be one

(02:58):
way to make it all more efficient too.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
And this production expansion that we'll see with Ford and
ev does that mean more jobs or fewer jobs? Is
this cutting away at things?

Speaker 3 (03:08):
You know, they're saying it's going to be you know,
one thousands more jobs across its plants in Michigan and elsewhere.
But the thing is, when you're talking about more efficient production,
that could mean fewer jobs on the production line down
down the line. We are not quite sure how that's
all going to work out yet. Right now they're touting
more jobs, but as with anything, you know, these companies
could change their minds usually.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
He is the.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Senior editor at n Gadget's Devendra Hardowar. Thank you