Ford Has a “Model T Moment” Coming August 11, Says CEO Farley – But This Time It’s An EV

Ford’s push into affordable EVs appears to be coming a big step closer to reality, CEO Jim Farly planning to make a major announcement on August 11 at the automaker’s assembly plant in Louisville, Kentucky next week. It will be, the CEO suggested, “a Model T moment,” referencing the legendary vehicle that put Ford on the map more than a century ago. More from Headlight.News.

“August 11 will be a big day for all of us at Ford,” according to CEO Jim Farley. During an earnings call, the executive revealed that the automaker will offer significant new details about the so-called “skunk works” project Ford has been working on aimed at rolling out an affordable battery-electric vehicle.

“This is a Model T moment for us,” Farley added, referencing the little runabout that made the automaker a dominant player in the emerging auto industry during the first years of the 20^th Century.

Last year, Farley scrapped several existing Ford EV programs, including an upscale 3-row SUV, to put a focus on an EV that could be as transformative as the Model T was a century ago.

A new family of vehicles

Ford currently has three EVs on the road: the Mustang Mach-E, the F-150 Lighting and the E-Transit, an all-electric version of its commercial Transit van. While several other programs were in the works, they focused on higher-end segments of the market, Farley last year deciding to shift directions.

A small product development team was put together and relocated from Detroit to Long Beach, California. They’ve been tasked with coming up with the sort of affordable mass-market EVs that company founder Henry Ford might have aimed for were he starting the business today.

“We will be in Kentucky to share more about our plans to design and build a breakthrough electric vehicle and a platform in the U.S.,” explained Farley. “This is a Model-T moment for us at Ford. A chance to bring a new family of vehicles to the world that offer incredible technology, efficiency, space and features.”

What’s coming

For the moment, Ford is offering up few details about what Farley might reveal, though several sources told Headlight.News that the August 11 event will not bring the rollout of any new EVs.

What Ford has already indicated is that the California-based team is working on an electrified “architecture” that can be used for a variety of different vehicles, likely to include at least one compact SUV and a pickup that is expected to be closer in size to the hybrid Ford Maverick than the big, all-electric Lightning.

Among other things, the skunkworks program is known to be focusing on the use of lithium-iron phosphate, or LFP, batteries – which Ford is tooling up to produce at a $3 billion factory in Western Michigan. While they sacrifice a bit of range, LFP batteries are substantially cheaper than the more common lithium-ion batteries that dominate today’s U.S. EV market. They’re also much less likely to catch fire in a crash or in the event of a short-circuit.

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Propping up a weakening EV market

U.S. EV sales mushroomed from less than 1% of the total new vehicle market in 2019 to around 8% in 2023. Sales have continued rising since then, but only at about the pace of the overall market. A variety of factors catch blame, including range anxiety, the lack of a robust public charging network and pricing. The average transaction price for a new battery-electric vehicle was $56,910 in June, according to Cox Automotive, roughly $8,000 more than the overall market average.

A number of automakers have begun rolling out more affordable offerings pushing down into the mid-$30,000 range, such as the upcoming Kia EV4 and the Chevrolet Equinox EV. Chevy is set to drop below $30,000, it has signaled, when it relaunches the Bolt nameplate next year. Tesla also plans to cut prices with a new version of its Model Y.

But the goal of driving down costs has run into a number of new obstacles, many laid out by the Trump administration. It not only has set a September phase-out of the $7.500 federal EV tax credits but saddled manufacturers with a number of new tariffs on imported autos and auto parts, as well as foreign-made aluminum and steel. Trump this month announced plans to tariff imported copper, a critical metal in EVs. And tariffs on a variety of minerals essential to batteries have substantially raised prices since most are sourced from China.

A nod to Congress

On the plus side, noted Farley, lawmakers decided not to eliminate production tax credits that will help reduce the cost of building Ford’s new EVs at the Louisville plant, and the Michigan-sourced batteries thy will use.

“We’re thankful that Congress upheld that,” he said, noting “that’s a key part of our profitability roadmap to transition to these lower cost batteries.”

Target: China

While Tesla and GM, among other familiar competitors, also want to launch more affordable EVs, Farley has indicated he and the skunkworks team have focused much of their attention on China. Domestic brands like BYD and Geely have emerged as fast-rising stars in the global EV market, delivering well-reviewed products that, in some markets, start at little over $10,000.

Farley has been seen routinely driving some Chinese EVs Ford brought over to study and the CEO and his leadership tea spent a significant amount of team earlier this year in China to get a closer look at what they’re going up against, reported the Detroit Free Press.

“We really see, not the global (manufacturers) as our competitive set for our next generation of EVs, we see the Chinese. Companies like Geely, BYD,” Farley said. “That’s how we built our vehicle. How we’ve engineered what kind of supply chain we’ve used and the kind of low content in our manufacturing.”