Why the automaker is tearing up the assembly line playbook
Ford thinks it has cracked the code on beating Chinese electric car makers: Build cars like no one has before.
The company is spending $2 billion to scrap the traditional assembly line and try something radical. Instead of piecing together cars bit by bit on one long conveyor belt, Ford will build three separate chunks—front, middle, rear—at the same time, then snap them together at the end.
No automaker has ever mass-produced cars this way. If it works, Ford could build electric vehicles 40% faster with 20% fewer parts. If it doesn’t, the company just blew billions on an experiment while Chinese competitors eat their lunch.
The China problem: BYD, China’s electric car giant, has 700,000 employees and can build cheap, decent electric cars faster than Ford can figure out what went wrong. Chinese manufacturers have scale Ford can’t match and costs Ford can’t touch.
Ford’s answer: Out-innovate them.
“We took a radical approach to a very hard challenge: Create affordable vehicles that delight customers in every way that matters – design, innovation, flexibility, space, driving pleasure, and cost of ownership – and do it with American workers,” CEO Jim Farley said in announcing the new platform.
How it Works
Picture this: Instead of workers crawling into cramped spaces to install parts in a mostly-built car, they assemble three complete sections simultaneously. The middle section is built around a battery pack that doubles as the car’s floor. The front and rear are single pieces of cast aluminum. Only after all three are finished do they get joined together.
“The operator can build the car inside the car,” Farley said. Translation: Workers can actually reach what they’re working on.
Doug Field, Ford’s electric vehicle chief who used to run Tesla’s Model 3 program, calls it “cell-to-body” manufacturing. The battery isn’t just stuck under the car—it is the car’s structure.
This isn’t just about factory efficiency. The first vehicle built this way will be a $30,000 electric pickup truck launching in 2027. That price puts Ford squarely in Chinese territory, where cheap electric vehicles are already eating the world.
The Execution Risk
Hitting that $30,000 price tag with American workers and American-made batteries? That’s the hard part.
Ford hasn’t revealed crucial details: How far will the truck drive? How fast will it charge? Can those big aluminum castings survive crashes and get repaired affordably?
The company is essentially betting it can solve manufacturing problems that have stumped the industry for decades. Tesla floated a similar “unboxed” concept in 2023 but hasn’t built anything yet. If Ford beats Tesla to production, the 120-year-old company will have out-innovated the innovation king.
Why This Matters
Chinese electric car makers are preparing to flood global markets with cheap, competitive vehicles. American automakers have two choices: Match Chinese prices or find a better way to build cars.
Ford is betting on the better way. The new platform can build everything from small cars to big SUVs using the same basic approach. If it works, Ford gets a manufacturing advantage that could last years.
The timeline is brutal. Ford’s $30,000 truck hits showrooms in 2027, the same year Chinese automakers plan their major U.S. invasion. Tesla’s cheap Model 2 could arrive around then too.
The stakes: This isn’t just about Ford. It’s about whether American manufacturers can compete with Chinese industrial might through engineering instead of just moving production overseas.
Ford has 4,000 American jobs riding on this bet. More importantly, it has the company’s electric future on the line.
Three years from now, Ford will either have reinvented car manufacturing — or have a $2 billion reminder of why no one builds cars this way.