Ford details plans for new $700m high tech factory for electric pickup trucks

The new plant will be built within its 92 year-old complex in Michigan and will be its 'most advanced facility'

Ford Motors executive chairman Bill Ford poses for a photo with the 2021 Ford F-150 King Ranch Truck at the Dearborn Truck Plant. AFP

Ford Motors, facing an onslaught of competition for its new battery-powered F-150 pickup, unveiled the high-tech factory that will produce the electric truck using self-driving transport sleds and robots collaborating with human workers.

The plant is going up inside Ford’s 92-year-old Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan, and will be the “most advanced facility we’ve got in the world”, manufacturing chief Gary Johnson told reporters in a briefing on Wednesday. The autonomous sleds will transport truck bodies from one station to the next, while robots will help to assemble the vehicles. The factory is scheduled to be completed next summer and begin building prototype electric F-150s.

Ford is spending $700 million (Dh2.57bn) to overhaul its Rouge complex as it wages a pitched battle to maintain decades of dominance in the pickup section of the market. Today, it began building a redesigned version of its gasoline-fueled F-150, the company’s biggest money maker. Though it sold almost 900,000 F-Series trucks last year, Ford is playing catch-up with more recently revamped versions of its primary rivals: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' Ram and General Motors’ Chevrolet Silverado.

The second-largest US automaker also is seeking to stake a substantial claim to the emerging market for electric trucks, which has seen a rash of new entrants, including Tesla’s Cybertruck, Rivian Automotive’s R1T and Nikola Corporation’s Badger.

Ford said its electric truck, set to go on sale in 2022, will be the fastest and most powerful pickup it has ever produced. The car maker cast its competitors as “lifestyle trucks”, saying the electric F-150 will double as a mobile generator capable of powering a job site or the driver’s home.

“This isn’t a gimmick,” chief operating officer and future chief executive Jim Farley was scheduled to say during a ceremony at the plant on Thursday. “It’s a workhorse, not a showhorse destined for a shiny garage filled with four other luxury cars.”

The automaker’s research found “very substantial demand” that “focused on the work customer”, Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s president of the Americas and international markets, told reporters on Wednesday. “It was enough for us to make this investment both in the product as well as the factory.”

The 2021 Ford F-150 King Ranch Truck on display at the Ford Built for America event held at Ford's Dearborn Truck Plant on Thursday. AFP

The new 500,000 square-foot Rouge Electric Vehicle centre will create 300 new jobs and also produce a gasoline-electric hybrid version of the F-150 that will go on sale sooner than the electric truck.

The two electrified models represent the future of the F-Series, according to the company.

“It sets the Rouge up with a long-term vision with new technology and battery-electric products with our most important vehicle,” Mr Johnson said.

Ford shares pared a gain of as much as 1 per cent to trade up 0.4 per cent to $7.04 as of 5:43pm UAE time on Thursday evening.