Ford Motor is pressing ahead with its next-generation electric vehicle platform despite nearly $5 billion in projected EV losses this year, banking on a secretive California development center and a roughly $30,000 midsize electric pickup truck planned for the U.S. market next year. The company calls it the most radical change in how it builds vehicles since the Model T. Taxpayers and shareholders might call it something else: a very expensive gamble in a market that keeps punishing the gamblers.
The automaker's "Universal Electric Vehicle," or UEV, platform is the product of a skunk works team formed around 2022 and housed in a still-growing complex across from the Long Beach airport in California. CNBC reported that the Electric Vehicle Development Center now spans two buildings totaling 270,000 square feet, with a 150,000-square-foot testing and validation facility also under construction. Roughly 350 employees work there.
Ford CEO Jim Farley has framed the project as a $5 billion "bet" on American manufacturing. He made his case at the Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky on August 11, 2025, where the electric midsize pickup will eventually roll off the line.
The optimism from Dearborn sits uneasily beside the numbers. Ford's Model e EV unit lost $4.8 billion last year. This year, the company expects losses between $4 billion and $4.5 billion. Ford has absorbed $19.5 billion in electric vehicle restructuring charges. The company now says Model e will reach breakeven by 2029, a target that has already shifted once, after Ford canceled a planned three-row EV SUV in 2024 because it determined the vehicle could not be profitable "for the foreseeable future."
Ford says its future EVs built on the UEV platform will be profitable within a year of launching. That is a bold claim from a company whose recent earnings have told a different story.
The question is whether Ford can build an EV that American consumers actually want at a price they will pay, and whether it can do so before the red ink swallows the whole enterprise.
The skunk works unit recently lost its most prominent leader. Doug Field, the highly touted EV and technology head recruited from Tesla and Apple, announced his unexpected departure on April 15. In his place, Alan Clarke, a 12½-year Tesla veteran and the first employee of the skunk works team, was promoted from senior director to vice president of Advanced Development Projects.
Clarke, speaking to CNBC at the Long Beach facility, acknowledged the turbulence but projected confidence:
"We've been able to pivot around all the different market conditions.... The EV industry has had massive headwinds, and so we've had to adjust."
On Field's exit, Clarke was diplomatic. He said Field had "set us up for success, as has Jim," and added that "it was the right time for him." Whether Field's departure signals deeper trouble inside the program or simply a natural transition, Ford isn't saying.
Clarke was more pointed when discussing the upcoming pickup. He told CNBC the midsize truck "won't have anything that competes with it, either in price or product form," calling it a vehicle that "sort of stands alone in that sense." He said the team can "hit this goal of getting it out next year."
Ford designed the UEV platform from scratch, a clean-sheet approach intended to slash cost and complexity. The company says the new EVs will reduce parts by 20 percent compared with the Ford Mustang Mach-E, cut fasteners by 25 percent, require 40 percent fewer workstations in the plant, and shave 15 percent off assembly time.
One number stands out. Ford says the new electric pickup will have just two structural front and rear parts. The company's current gas-powered Maverick small pickup uses 146 such components. That is not a trim. That is a wholesale rethinking of how a truck gets built.
Thermal systems engineer Mitch Shinn put it plainly at the Long Beach media event:
"We like to say that the best part is no part, and the second best part is a part that serves multiple purposes."
The platform uses a smaller battery pack with U.S.-produced lithium iron phosphate cells, a 48-volt electrical architecture, and megacasting, large single-piece castings that replace dozens of welded parts. All of it is aimed at one target: getting the price down to roughly $30,000 so ordinary Americans can afford an EV pickup without a government subsidy propping up the transaction.
That last point matters more now than it did a year ago. The elimination of U.S. consumer incentives to buy EVs has made the market harder for every manufacturer. American buyers have shown they want affordable, no-frills vehicles, and the industry has been slow to listen.
Behind every decision at the Long Beach facility sits a single competitive reality: Chinese automakers are faster, cheaper, and gaining ground worldwide. Global market share for Chinese brands has jumped nearly 70 percent in five years, according to GlobalData. AlixPartners reports that Chinese startups develop vehicles in about 20 months, half the time of traditional global automakers. Their models are two to three years fresher than non-China brands. They spend a third less time on product validation.
Mark Wakefield, AlixPartners' global automotive lead, described the challenge:
"It's really not one thing, but it's series of things that lead them to be able to get to a sub-two year, very repeatable cycle of launching a vehicle. It's a big challenge for all the car companies."
Clarke acknowledged the gap but said he remains "pretty confident" the UEV can compete. He noted that Chinese companies operate under "different rules" and that Ford must "play by the rules here." His bottom line: "We won't win, ultimately, unless we get down to the prices that American consumers are willing to pay for EVs like this."
Farley himself has been unusually blunt about the threat. He has previously warned that Chinese automakers selling freely in the U.S. would be "devastating" to the domestic industry. Last week, on an earnings call, he said Ford is "fully committed to a level playing field here in the U.S. and also safeguarding our home market, because of the importance of the auto industry and our industrial base."
That language, "level playing field," "safeguarding", is corporate-speak for tariffs and trade enforcement. Farley wants protection from Beijing's subsidized manufacturers while simultaneously trying to match their efficiency. It is a defensible position, but it requires the company to deliver a product that justifies the protection.
The Long Beach center was built to operate outside Ford's traditional bureaucracy. Clarke described it as focused on speed and agility, a startup mentality inside a 123-year-old company. The facility is being configured not just for the pickup but for future EVs that Clarke declined to detail.
Farley, on last week's earnings call, signaled that the skunk works approach is spreading beyond the EV unit:
"They've done an incredible job creating the UEV platform, which represents a step change in efficiency and cost, especially for the EV market. But, at Ford, we're now integrating these skunk work breakthroughs back into our mainstream products and processes."
He called the UEV "the most radical change on how we design and how we build vehicles at Ford since the Model T" and said the company aimed to "put the world on wheels", echoing Henry Ford's original mission. Whether that ambition extends beyond North America remains unclear. Clarke said the team's focus "right now is really on the North American market," though the vehicle is being designed so it "can be sold anywhere."
Ford has also explored partnerships with Renault and Volkswagen to compete more effectively on a global scale. Farley has openly praised Chinese automakers' products, an unusual admission from a Detroit CEO that underscores how seriously Ford takes the competitive gap.
Ford's EV strategy has been marked by grand announcements followed by painful write-downs. The $19.5 billion in restructuring charges, the canceled SUV, the billions in annual losses, none of that disappears because a new facility opened in Long Beach or because a thermal engineer has a good line about eliminating parts.
The pickup truck, if it launches on schedule next year at roughly $30,000, would be a genuine market event. No competitor currently offers anything like it at that price point, as Clarke noted. But Ford has missed targets before, and the EV market remains volatile, shaped by shifting government policy, uncertain consumer demand, and relentless Chinese competition.
Meanwhile, other automakers are finding creative ways to extract revenue from drivers through software and subscriptions, a reminder that the industry's business model is in flux far beyond the powertrain.
Clarke told CNBC the Long Beach investment represents a commitment to "future products in general. We want to go faster than we were able to go." Speed is the right instinct. But speed costs money, and Ford has already spent more than most companies can afford to lose.
A $5 billion bet on American manufacturing deserves respect. But respect doesn't pay the bills, and neither do press tours. The pickup has to ship, it has to sell at $30,000, and it has to turn a profit. Until then, this is a promise, not a product.