Will they all be painted black?
From Counterpoint Research February 17:
- Even as Ford pushes back into a richer mix of ICE and hybrid vehicles better suited to its core North American market, it is talking about its new EV program – Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV), which bears zero relation to any previous Ford EV.
- Ford has assembled a small team of technologists and cloistered them in Long Beach, California, far from its Michigan heartland, and given them carte blanche to develop an EV platform true to the spirit of Ford.
- Ford is not trying to develop a flagship car with an aspirational price tag. It is cleaving to the idea originally espoused by Henry Ford in the Model-T over a hundred years ago.
- The first model based on the UEV is a mid-sized truck starting at $30,000. Its design is reckoned to be 15% more aerodynamically efficient than the best competing truck.
Ford, along with several other Western automakers, has had a difficult time with EV development. The company’s Q4 2025 earnings were messy, with a net loss of over $11 billion on previously disclosed writedowns associated with its EV programs. However, the underlying business execution at Ford is improving as it pushes back into a richer mix of ICE and hybrid vehicles better suited to its core North American market, especially given the US government’s wavering commitment to the EV transition.
Against this background, it might seem strange that Ford is talking about its new EV program –Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) (or, as someone cheekily put it, FUEV!). However, the UEV, first announced in August 2025, bears zero relation to any previous Ford EV; this is a 100% clean sheet development, and it has a lot of interesting details. There are still many question marks, but what it has revealed so far looks promising in a way that is encouraging, and encouragingly different for a Western automaker.
The A-Team
As a kid, I used to enjoy watching the ‘A-Team’ television series in which an unlikely assortment of characters would work innovatively against seemingly impossible odds to win the day. It might be stretching the analogy here, but Ford has assembled a small team of technologists and cloistered them in Long Beach, California, far from its Michigan heartland, and given them carte blanche to develop an EV platform true to the spirit of Ford.
The team is led by Alan Clarke, an ex-Tesla engineer who heads the Advanced Electric Vehicle Development unit. His tight-knit group of engineers, technologists and aerodynamicists – many of the latter drawn from Formula-1 backgrounds – is untainted by association with Ford’s previous EV programs.
Model-T roots
An EV true to the spirit of Ford needs to be understood. Ford is not trying to develop a flagship car with an aspirational price tag. It is cleaving to the idea originally espoused by Henry Ford in the Model-T over a hundred years ago. The Model-T was revolutionary because it was deliberately designed and priced as a mass product rather than a luxury good, and then built using radical new mass‑production methods that slashed costs and prices over time. By adopting a simple, durable and easy‑to‑repair platform design, Ford made car ownership realistic for ordinary middle‑class and even working‑class families. Now, it is trying to do that again, but for the EV era and one that’s fun to drive, a non-negotiable for the design team....
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