Doug Discipline, Ford’s chief EV, digital and design officer, who previously ran Apple‘s automobile program and was led the event of the Mannequin 3 at Tesla, has been marshaling Ford’s in-house skunkworks crew secretly growing this mission, referred to internally as CE1.
“We construct a structural battery out of the cells, and that’s the ground of the car. So we really constructed the seats on it,” says Discipline. So, to be clear, there is no body or construction with a battery on high of it to which the seats are bolted—with Ford’s new mannequin the battery is the construction. How does this differ from present cell-to-chassis or cell-to-pack expertise? “That is cell-to-body,” says Discipline, and provides that making this all work was very, very laborious.
“There isn’t any single magic breakthrough. It is simply actually, actually laborious engineering,” he says. “And there is a complete bunch of issues to be solved. Like, now you’ve this physique that has no ground, how do you retain it from bending because it goes down the road? How do you cope with the paint once you’ve painted the again half, however you have not painted the entrance half, after which you are going to bolt them collectively on the finish?”
“We knew we wished to construct [EVs] in a different way, and we determined how we wished to construct them—then we bought a enormous set of engineering issues we needed to go resolve to make that work.” The worst of those issues? “Becoming a member of the entrance finish. Sealing, crash [strength], corrosion, dimensional accuracy—all of these issues, doing these on the finish is … that entrance finish joint is certainly probably the most troublesome.”
Sure, a lot of that is catching up with state-of-the-art stuff for EVs, equivalent to zonal structure the place completely different capabilities are managed in several components of the automobile, which you’ll already see within the new Tesla Mannequin Y and plenty of China EVs. Equally, massive aluminum castings are already being utilized by Tesla and Chinese language makers.
Nonetheless, if Ford has genuinely managed to fabricate a automobile in three distinct and full modules, that are then accomplished totally and solely then bolted collectively, that may be a real first. Sure, Tesla has talked about doing one thing like this again in 2023 with its “unboxed” EV manufacturing course of, however it hasn’t finished it but. In different phrases, Ford could have crushed Tesla to the punch right here. The previous dinosaur has became fairly the velociraptor.
Virtually as spectacular as Ford’s new modular manufacturing is the variety of folks and sheer velocity with which the corporate has achieved this plain win. “What’s actually fascinating is the scale of the crew [the skunkworks had] in comparison with what if Ford had to do that,” says Farley. “If we pressured [Ford] do it, it could have taken 5 occasions the folks.”
“Once we agreed to begin this system, three years in the past, we employed Alan Clarke. He went right into a constructing, and it was one particular person. That is how the mission began,” says Discipline. Alan Clarke labored for Discipline at Tesla, the place he helped create the Mannequin 3, labored on the Y, the Cybertruck, and extra. “There’s folks in China now who in all probability have handed him, however on the time he had architected extra electrical autos than anyone on this planet, so he was completely the precise particular person to faucet. And he is additionally a expertise magnet. He is constructed the crew actually rapidly—a world-class crew. Lots of people who’re tremendous excited to maneuver from a Rivian or a Tesla and construct one thing for Ford.”
Farley thinks that Ford’s new manner of creating EVs is the right weapon to tackle the Chinese language automakers, the best instance of exactly how the West must compete. “You have bought the BYD mannequin: 700,000 staff, 200,000 powertrain engineers. How do you beat them?” asks Farley.
“Seems, Doug and Alan and the crew constructed a propulsion system that was like Apollo 13, managed right down to the watt in order that our battery may very well be a lot smaller than BYD’s. Their price benefit on vertical integration on the battery is offset by innovation within the powertrain. We won’t beat them on scale. We won’t beat them on vertical integration. However we will beat them on innovation.”
