I toured Ford’s secret lab where it’s designing an EV to compete with China

Ford recently opened a “skunkworks” facility to accelerate EV development in the hopes of catching up with China, whose EV industry is rapidly taking over the globe. And we got a chance to look behind the veil and see what they’ve been up to in developing the new “Universal EV.”

The Chinese auto industry is ascendant in this moment. Everyone knows it – including Ford CEO Jim Farley, who has been driving Chinese cars and visiting China, and finding himself “humbled” by what he sees.

So, Ford decided to do something about it. It announced a $5 billion investment into EV manufacturing last year, centered around the “Ford Universal EV Platform” which will allow low-cost production of several different electric vehicles, starting with a mid-size pickup at around $30,000. The Louisville production line that will build the Ford UEV is already being set up with an expected 2027 release.

That’s not long from now, and in service of this goal, it has opened a new skunkworks-like facility with the plain name “EV Design Center” in Long Beach, CA, intending to get all the factors of EV design and development under the same roof in order to speed up the process. And it invited us out for a tour last week.