{"id":240582,"date":"2023-03-24T11:36:15","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T15:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=240582"},"modified":"2023-03-24T11:39:40","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T15:39:40","slug":"ford-will-trust-the-truck-the-new-one-built-at-blueoval-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2023\/03\/ford-will-trust-the-truck-the-new-one-built-at-blueoval-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford Will Trust The Truck \u2014 The New One Built at BlueOval City"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ford Motor Co.\u2019s push to its electric future marched forward Friday, after it revealed plans to build an all-new, all-electric pickup, dubbed Project T3, at its BlueOval City site starting in 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"BlueOval
Designed to be radically efficient and carbon neutral, the BlueOval City truck plant on the site will produce 500,000 electric trucks annually.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The company plans to build 500,000 of the new pickups annually at the plant, developed at the same time as the new pickup. The move to design the truck and the plant that will produce it is a new approach for the century-plus-year-old automaker \u2014 and it represents significant change and improvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cProject T3 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revolutionize America\u2019s truck. We are melding 100 years of Ford truck know-how with world-class electric vehicle, software and aerodynamics talent. It will be a platform for endless innovation and capability,\u201d said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPJ O\u2019Rourke once described American pickups as \u2018a back porch with an engine attached.\u2019 Well, this new truck is going to be like the Millennium Falcon \u2014 with a back porch attached.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything old is new again<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"BlueOval
The new plant will be home to Ford\u2019s second-generation electric truck, code named Project T3, short for “Trust The Truck.”<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe manufacturing process will be equally breakthrough, with radical simplicity, cost efficiency and quality technology that will make BlueOval City the modern-day equivalent of Henry Ford\u2019s Rouge factory. A factory of the future that people from all over the world will want to tour,\u201d Farley said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company broke ground last September<\/a><\/u><\/strong> on the 3,600-acre site near Memphis, and has been making steady progress. However, exactly what was going to be build first hasn\u2019t been clarified \u2014 until now. It was assumed a new truck would be built there as well as other EVs.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The peculiar nickname for the new truck, Project T3, came from organic beginnings, officials noted. It\u2019s short for \u201cTrust The Truck,\u201d which stuck after the pickup\u2019s development team members made it their rallying cry. The team\u2019s single guiding principle has been to create a truck people can trust in the digital age \u2014 fully updatable, constantly improving, and supports towing, hauling, exportable power and endless new innovations owners will want, the company said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"BlueOval
Ford and partner SK On are investing $5.6 billion in the BlueOval City campus and creating approximately 6,000 new jobs. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When it opens in 2025, it will produce electric vehicles including the next-generation Ford F-150 Lightning. The complex also will feature a battery plant capable of rolling out enough batteries to power up nearly 400,000 vehicles like the Lightning pickup. And it will add a battery recycling facility, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BlueOval City also is a key part of Ford\u2019s plan to scale EV production. Together with its South Korean battery partner SK Innovation<\/a><\/u><\/strong>, it will invest a combined $11.4 billion to build both BlueOval City and an additional pair of battery plants in neighboring Kentucky. The Tennessee complex alone will come in around $5.6 billion, and it\u2019s expected to employ 6,000 people when fully operational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company is targeting a production run rate of 600,000 EVs by the end of this year and 2 million EVs annually across the globe by late 2026. As part of that effort Ford\u2019s also been expanding its new Rouge facility currently building the Ford F-150 Lightning. The second generation of that vehicle is reportedly going to be built at BlueOval City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new take for new times<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ford officials were quick to point out the significant advantages \u2014 financial and otherwise \u2014 that come with designing the vehicle and the plant that will build it at the same time. The company noted it can use a 30% smaller general assembly footprint than traditional plants while delivering higher production capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"BlueOval<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlueOval City is the blueprint for Ford\u2019s electric future around the world,\u201d said Bill Ford, Ford\u2019s executive chair. \u201cWe will build revolutionary electric vehicles at an advanced manufacturing site that works in harmony with the planet, aligning business growth and innovation with environmental progress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the smaller footprint for the manufacturing space, the assembly plant will use carbon-free electricity from the day it opens. For the first time in 120 years, Ford also is using recovered energy from the site\u2019s utility infrastructure and geothermal system to provide carbon-free heat for the assembly plant \u2014 saving about 300 million cubic feet of natural gas typically needed each year to heat similarly sized vehicle assembly plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials claim the site will save 50 million gallons of water annually by reducing evaporation from the site\u2019s cooling towers. In fact, it will never use any sort of freshwater for its assembly process and will be a zero-landfill-waste plant when it opens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ford also intends to develop a holistic stormwater management system separate from the water table to help protect the local environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ford Motor Co.\u2019s push to its electric future continued Friday, after it revealed plans to build an all-new, all-electric pickup at its BlueOval City site starting in 2025. The company plans to build 500,000 of the new pickups, dubbed Project T3, annually. Get the details at TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4389,"featured_media":240587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,5,10,1164,3185,2648,1347,9],"tags":[1981,364,10275,10276,10277],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240582"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240582"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240594,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240582\/revisions\/240594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240582"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=240582"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=240582"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=240582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}