Ford will build next-gen electric truck at $5.6 billion factory in 2025

Ford said Friday its $5.6 billion BlueOval City complex outside Memphis, Tenn., will include a truck plant capable of producing 500,000 electric vehicles a year.

The first vehicle to roll off the line will be a next-generation electric truck, named Project T3, in 2025.

Construction at BlueOval City, the epicenter of its future EV and battery cell manufacturing and a key component toward its goal of selling 2 million EVs a year by the end of 2026, began last fall.

“BlueOval City is the blueprint for Ford’s electric future globally,” Ford executive chairman Bill Ford said in a statement. “We will build breakthrough electric vehicles at a state-of-the-art manufacturing site that works in harmony with the planet, aligning business growth and innovation with environmental advancements.”

The T3, which Ford says stands for Trust the Truck, will be a clean design, unlike its current electric truck, the F-150 Lightning. The T3 will be a “software-defined” vehicle capable of over-the-air updates, the company said.

The automaker is developing its second-generation electric truck alongside the all-new assembly plant in a bid to increase operational efficiency, an area where Ford has struggled.

The general assembly footprint will be 30% smaller than traditional factories while offering higher production capacity, the company said. The plant will also use carbon-free electricity when it opens. Ford will use energy harvested from the site’s utility infrastructure and geothermal system to provide carbon-free heat to the assembly plant, a move the company says will save an estimated 300 million cubic feet. cubes of natural gas typically needed each year to heat the assembly of similar sized vehicles. plants.

Other energy and water-saving technologies will be used on the 3,600-acre campus, such as a zero-waste-to-landfill site designed to use no fresh water for its assembly processes.