00:00Right. This was an engineering exercise. The universal EV. What did they actually do to engineer out cost and stay
00:08in the game?
00:09Well, as you said, they did it far from Detroit. This was set up in California.
00:15It was led by Alan Clark, who's a former Tesla engineer. And they just they sweat the details.
00:21It's like improvement by a thousand cuts. And they've managed to shrink the size of the battery on this EV.
00:27The battery is the most expensive component of an electric vehicle, while at the same time extending the range by
00:33about 50 miles.
00:34That's just one of many engineering gains they made, which is the reason they can feel this vehicle at thirty
00:40thousand dollars as a starting price,
00:43which is twenty thousand dollars below the average price of a new car in America today.
00:48We spent about 45 minutes on the phone with Doug Field, which is a really interesting exercise.
00:52There is a pathway here, right? It starts twenty twenty seven with a pickup truck and they go basically from
00:59skunk works to reintegrating back into the might of Ford with distant,
01:05maybe distant key ambitions on L3 systems. What's the sort of timeline from here of this UEV platform, please?
01:13Yeah, not exactly that far distant. They're going to come with the eyes off the road level three semi autonomy
01:20in twenty twenty eight.
01:22So a year after they launch this vehicle, they'll offer buyers the option of getting this semi autonomous size off
01:30the road,
01:31hands off the wheel feature. So their point is they can put a feature like that on an inexpensive car
01:37in the thirty thousandths,
01:39which is unusual. Normally those sorts of advanced technology features show up first on very high end luxury cars closer
01:47to six figures.
01:48Right. The approach from Ford thus far has been to electrify the big winners, thinking Mucky, thinking F-150 Lightning.
01:56That's gone now. Right. And the focus is that's gone. Right. And the focus is China.
02:01So put that that context out there for us. Why this approach, ground up, starting from fresh, is the right
02:08way to counter the cost basis of a Chinese EV company.
02:13Right. So the advantage the Chinese have is in price. I mean, there's a there's a Chinese EV in China
02:19for ten thousand dollars.
02:20Not likely that would come here. But but they have a big price advantage, even if you make a car
02:25ready for the U.S. market.
02:26But they also have a technology advantage. They have, you know, cars that are essentially an extension of your of
02:33your smartphone, smart cars.
02:35So you need to compete against them both on price and technology.
02:39That's what Ford says it's doing with this because of the approach they've taken.
02:44It's not just an affordable vehicle, they say, but it's a desirable vehicle with lots of good features.
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