Inside Ford’s Skunkworks: Designing a $30,000 Electric Pickup
▼ Summary
– The Ford EVDC employs about 350 people on-site at Long Beach, with a total team of around 480 including remote employees, making it a small division within Ford.
– The facility is equipped with advanced tools like 3D printers and a CNC mill, enabling rapid prototyping and in-house manufacturing without outsourcing.
– A monthly cost review tracks past, committed, and projected expenses to ensure affordability, influencing design choices like seat bolt orientation to reduce labor costs.
– Johnson’s rule about subcontractor delegation is largely irrelevant at EVDC due to vertical integration, which eliminates the need for outside contractors.
– Engineers validate designs in-house using high-level test equipment, including a mock car for laying out wiring harnesses and testing hardware and software.
At Ford’s Electric Vehicle Development Center in Long Beach, around 350 people are on-site at any given moment, with the broader team swelling to roughly 480 when factoring in those working remotely on manufacturing engineering and software. By Ford’s standards, that makes this a remarkably lean operation.
One of the center’s defining features is a simplified drawing and release system that prioritizes flexibility. The facility is packed with advanced tools, including three types of 3D printers and a CNC mill so large it could swallow up a couple of small apartments. There’s even a machine dedicated to sculpting full-size clay models. This setup enables rapid prototyping and a streamlined approval process, eliminating the need to ship designs off-site for fabrication. Everyone works under the same roof, breaking down traditional silos and accelerating progress. Beyond the high-tech gear, there are wood and metal shops, and even seat design and patterning are handled in-house.
The philosophy is simple: minimize reporting overhead so engineers can focus on the work itself. The less time spent justifying decisions to executives, the more time there is for actual innovation.
That said, a monthly cost review is non-negotiable. It covers not just what has been spent and committed, but also projected costs through the program’s end. This is more than basic project management. Because Ford’s Universal Electric Vehicle is being engineered for maximum affordability, every design choice is scrutinized for its cost impact. This extends from material selection to seemingly small details like orienting seat mounting bolts outward to speed up assembly and cut labor costs. The pursuit of efficiency is relentless.
Johnson’s seventh rule about delegating responsibility to contractors for better bids has largely become obsolete. Thanks to vertical integration, EVDC handles everything from computer-aided design to clay modeling, rapid prototyping, assembly, and testing. Outside contractors are rarely needed.
The eighth rule, which calls for pushing inspection responsibility back to vendors, has been adapted for Ford’s context. Instead of contractors, it’s the engineers who take on more validation work. The teams are equipped with top-tier test gear, allowing them to verify designs before they leave the office. A mock car built from 80/20 aluminum extrusions serves as a physical blueprint for the entire wiring harness and its attachments, minus the battery pack. This lets engineers validate both the hardware,including the in-house modules that form the UEV’s zonal architecture,and the software that brings it all to life.
(Source: Ars Technica)
