Ford announced a pair of dedicated EV platforms during its online capital markets day, along with a pledge to boost its connectivity capabilities and investment in electric vehicles.
The company expects 40% of its global sales to be fully electric vehicles by 2030 and, as part of the new Ford + strategy, has increased its EV development spending to over $ 30 billion. (£ 21.2 billion) by 2025. This will fund the design of a pair of new modular EV platforms, as well as a range of battery technologies that could lower manufacturing costs, increase usability and minimize the environmental impact.
The introduction of a tailor-made rear-wheel-drive, all-wheel-drive platform that by 2030 will be used for a wide variety of active, commercial, pick-up, heavy-duty vehicles will be crucial to the new thrust of electrification of the company. Full-size SUV and SUV segments.
It will be joined by a larger architecture that will be used for vehicles in the crucial full-size pickup truck and commercial markets of Ford. However, Ford will continue to use Volkswagen’s MEB platform for mid-size passenger cars in Europe from 2023, given the relative strength of its German strategic partner in this segment.
Together, the two platforms will significantly reduce manufacturing costs, increase scalability, and increase profit margins per vehicle. Ford expects to be able to share 80% of vehicle components across its portfolio.
In addition to the planned platforms, the top tech news at Ford’s Capital Markets Day was the announcement of a new IonBoost battery program, developed in the same spirit as the smaller Ecoboost gasoline engines of the Mark. Ionboost Pro batteries will be used for commercial vehicles, which tend to have different duty cycles compared to passenger cars.
Beyond that, Ford expects to be able to bring “cheap, long-range” solid-state batteries to market by the end of this decade, following its increased investment earlier this year in the company. engineering of Solid Power batteries.
Ford has partnered with Korean firm SK Innovation to form BlueOvalSK, a battery production company that will produce 60 GWh of powertrains per year for Ford and Lincoln vehicles at two separate sites in North America. A new “Ion Park” facility has been opened in the United States as a center dedicated to the manufacture, development and improvement of the company’s battery technologies.
Following recent announcements regarding the connectivity capabilities of its new Mach-E and F-150 models, Ford also presented a bold plan to ensure its vehicles are “ always on ” – connected to the cloud, capable of receiving full information live. updates and providing enhanced entertainment and security features, while reducing development costs and increasing revenue.
It marks the company’s transition from mainstream retailing and fits a prediction that it will have sold 33 million compatible Ford and Lincoln models direct by 2028.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-05-26 14:20:22
