Ford recently offered a tantalizing glimpse at its new electric pickup, and as next year's highly anticipated debut approaches, we're piecing together what we think it will be like.
Last week, Ford revealed a few more details about the highly anticipated $30,000 electric mid-size pickup truck set to launch next year. The company invited reporters on a curated tour of its new Electric Vehicle Development Center (EVDC) in Long Beach, California. This facility, which officially opened last August, consolidates all aspects of the EV development process across two buildings totaling 250,000 square feet.
Did we get to see the finished EV pickup? No. But we did catch a quick, "surprise" glimpse of a heavily camouflaged development mule traveling through the yard between the two buildings before it vanished through a door. It was enough to convince reporters that the new EV would visually resemble a traditional truck from a distance.
Back in February, we first learned some technical details of the Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) platform—including its innovative use of large castings (Ford is careful not to call them "megacastings" as Tesla does) to form the front and rear subsections. With suspension added, these sections are then attached to the battery pack and subframe, creating a rolling chassis. The floorless body is subsequently added from above.
The Long Beach visit allowed reporters to get up close with these three main components of the UEV platform. We also saw the pickup truck's unitary "top hat" body structure, designed to drop over those components once they are fully assembled. Notably, two-thirds of that body was shrouded in cloth.
No photos were allowed during the tour, but Ford did provide some swag: a small, somewhat rough 3D-printed gray plastic model. Sliding the front and rear subframes into slots on the battery pack and adding wheels produced a rolling 1:32-scale chassis. Then the main body structure dropped onto it and snapped into place, and just like that, a model UEV pickup—minus its front-end styling.
Though we never saw a full, uncamouflaged vehicle, a few key things were apparent after the tour:
The new electric pickup will be the first of several low-priced EVs built on the company's new UEV platform. Ford stated the platform is designed to accommodate vehicles from the B-segment (subcompact) all the way up to commercial vans. During our visit, Dan Smith, director of occupant architecture and seating, mentioned the team is currently "exploring the smallest and largest vehicles we can build" on UEV underpinnings.
We would expect one likely follow-up to be a small, Escape-like SUV—an obvious choice given market trends. While touring the design studio, we observed no fewer than five car shapes under black covers, some showing obvious braces beneath the cloth to disguise their actual forms. Most appeared to be some variant of an SUV, though one might have been a sedan or hatchback. An SUV-shaped wooden frame also held three rows of prototype seats, suggesting another potential future offering.
An often-raised concern about large castings is their susceptibility to damage in collisions and the potential high cost of repairs. Would a low-speed crash necessitate the replacement of an entire giant casting that forms the complete front end?
Vlad Bogachuk, chief engineer of advanced vehicle structure architecture, addressed this topic head-on. He pointed out that every casting was designed with "cutlines" that would allow damaged subsections to be surgically cut out and replaced with new subsections, thereby keeping the rest of the vehicle intact.
With extensive insurance data indicating which parts of similar vehicles sustain damage in various types of crashes, Bogachuk expressed confidence that Ford can supply casting repair sections to get vehicles back on the road as quickly as conventional vehicles, potentially even with fewer labor hours.
In February, Ford not only revealed the technology underpinning the UEV platform but also the streamlined process that led to its creation. Reporters visiting the EVDC again heard the mantra: "The best part is no part; the second best part is the one that does multiple functions." With all parts of the development process located onsite together, the team is able to significantly streamline design and manufacturing, fostering efficiency and innovation.
Source: caranddriver.com
