Ford has bet over $74 billion on EVs, but its flagship electric pickup is losing steam. Through early 2025, F-150 Lightning sales are running about 15% below last year’s pace.
Meanwhile, rivals are surging: Tesla delivered roughly 39,000 Cybertrucks in 2024, compared to just over 33,500 Lightnings.
Facing these headwinds, Ford quietly opened a 250,000-square-foot design center in Southern California, staffed by 350 engineers racing to build a more affordable electric pickup.
Market Pressure
The electric truck market is heating up. About 58,000 EV pickups were sold in H1 2024, and Ford’s Lightning now competes with six new EV trucks in the premium segment.
Globally, Chinese automakers like BYD have grabbed roughly 18% of EV sales – even more striking, their vehicles often cost ~$25,000 less than U.S. models on average.
Chinese brands offer cheaper, high-tech EVs while Ford’s Lightning must fight to regain momentum.
Lightning Struggles
Once the electric-truck leader, the F-150 Lightning has hit a slump. Ford built only about 33,510 Lightnings in 2024.
The company slashed the base price from $57,090 to $49,875 to spur demand, but that hasn’t fully helped.
To match weak sales, Ford paused Lightning production for roughly 51 days through early 2025 and furloughed around 730 workers. In effect,
Ford is tightening its belt on Lightning output as rivals gain ground.
Chinese Threat
Ford’s top executives admit China’s EV rise is a shock. CEO Jim Farley called it “the most humbling thing I have ever seen,” noting Chinese carmakers produce about 70% of the world’s EVs with “far superior” in-car tech.
BYD alone churned out roughly 4.27 million vehicles in 2024, surpassing Tesla’s global sales. Farley has warned bluntly that “if we lose this, we do not have a future Ford”.
Detroit’s old guard faces an existential challenge from China’s electric-vehicle juggernaut.
California Lab
Here’s where it gets interesting: Ford opened a massive new skunkworks lab in Long Beach on August 6, 2025. The 250,000 sq.-ft. The Electric Vehicle Development Center is now the company’s main U.S. EV design hub.
About 350 engineers – many lured from Tesla, Apple, and other tech firms – are working on a new low-cost platform for a midsize pickup due by 2027.
As Ford program manager Ann Diep explains, this center will “develop a new generation of EVs people are going to love”.
It’s a pivotal shift: Ford is betting this high-tech outpost can help it catch up.
West Coast Hub
Long Beach isn’t just about space; it’s designed to jump-start innovation. Ford says the lab, an open, collaborative campus, will eventually house about 450 people (adding roughly 100 more to the 350 already there).
Proximity to Silicon Valley gives Ford access to top software and hardware talent and a rich charging infrastructure.
The idea is to blend Silicon Valley agility with Detroit’s truck expertise.
The California hub is Ford’s attempt to inject tech-sector pace into EV development while drawing on local tech ecosystems.
Leadership Shift
The Long Beach team is run by former Tesla engineering director Alan Clarke.
Clarke, 12 years at Tesla, now brings a startup mindset to Ford’s EV efforts.
He says this project is “a critical piece of our strategy to attract and retain top talent”.
With ex-Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, Apple and even drone-tech engineers on board, the unit operates more like a Silicon Valley startup than a traditional auto lab.
Clarke stresses fast iteration and autonomy – Ford’s new “skunkworks” can push the company far beyond past processes.
Competition Heat
Tesla and Rivian are already reaping rewards. In Q2 2024, Tesla shipped about 8,755 Cybertrucks and Rivian delivered about 7,902 R1T pickups – both outpacing Ford’s Lightning in recent quarters.
Meanwhile, GM’s Silverado EV has launched with a $57,095 starting price and up to 450 miles of range.
These competitors put pressure on Ford to accelerate its next-gen EV platform and keep pace on features and range. Simply put, the pickup market has a lot more contenders now, and Ford can’t afford to fall behind.
Platform Revolution
Ford’s goal is a ground-up EV architecture that slashes costs to Chinese levels. The team’s target is to bring average production cost down toward $30,000 – roughly matching the price of leading Chinese-made EVs – instead of the current $57,000 U.S. average.
To do so, they’re designing a highly modular platform with simpler manufacturing, akin to Tesla’s approach.
Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska reports Ford’s tech VP Lisa Drake has made it clear: Ford intends to “match the cost structure of leading Chinese players” across batteries, chassis, inverters and electronics.
everything in the truck must be rethought for low cost.
Model T Moment
Meanwhile, Ford has set August 11, 2025 for a major EV reveal. CEO Farley is hyping it as Ford’s “Model T moment” – a throwback to when Henry Ford brought cars to the masses.
At the event, Ford is expected to unveil the new midsize “T3” electric pickup’s platform and pricing plan. Farley says this is “a chance to bring a new family of vehicles to the world” on that affordable scale.
Director Jolanta Coffey adds Ford is literally invoking the Model T legacy: they want “to define a new era for electric vehicles — one that enables a new generation of smaller EVs for customers”.
The implication: Ford aims to make a truly affordable, high-volume EV truck – if it can.
Internal Tension
Behind the scenes, Ford’s EV division is under pressure to make money fast. The Model e unit lost about $1.3 billion in Q2 2025, and analysts say it could lose around $5.5 billion for 2024.
Finance chief John Lawler has publicly vowed that each new EV model must reach profitability within a year.
That’s sparked a feud: some execs push for quick market share gains, while others want to wait for revolutionary battery breakthroughs.
Bernstein’s Daniel Roeska sums up the mood: critics ask why Ford’s plan wasn’t more flexible and question “why investors will need to wait for a comprehensive update until next year”.
Ford is literally caught between short-term pains and long-term change.
Farley’s Vision
Farley himself has led a hands-on China study. He made at least six trips to China in the past year, personally test-driving rival EVs like Xiaomi’s SU7 and BYD cars.
He even had a Xiaomi EV shipped to Michigan for his engineers to dissect. He’s been blunt about what he’s found: “We are in a global competition with China,” Farley said, adding that if America falls behind, “we do not have a future Ford”.
Farley is treating this as an all-or-nothing war. He describes the Chinese EV offerings as “far superior” on cost and tech, and he’s racing to match them.
Recovery Plan
To fund the push, Ford carved out roughly $2 billion for the California “skunkworks” and set it up to move fast.
The goal is to shrink new model development from five-year cycles to about three years.
CEO Doug Field says the Long Beach center is “a key part of our strategy to build the best electric vehicle and technology development teams in the world”.
Like Tesla, Ford now emphasizes software-defined vehicles – ones that gain new features via over-the-air updates.
The plan is for every new Ford truck to be a rolling tech hub, with improvements delivered digitally after sale. That shift in mindset is central to Ford’s recovery.
Expert Skepticism
Even Ford’s allies warn it won’t be easy. Observers note Chinese firms had a 20+ year head start, plus enormous government subsidies.
One auto-consulting firm bluntly says, “Ford is playing catch-up in a game where the rules keep changing.”
The electric-truck sector itself is booming – some forecasts see nearly 30% annual growth – meaning missteps are costly.
Analysts are betting Ford’s engineering sprint faces an uphill battle: even a breakthrough pickup could arrive in a market where Chinese rivals have already gained decades of experience and scale.
Future Stakes
Ultimately, Ford’s Long Beach lab may decide the company’s fate in the EV era. Market research projects the global electric truck market to explode from $1.92 billion in 2023 to about $40 billion by 2035.
If Ford’s new platform succeeds, it could keep America’s automakers relevant in that gold rush.
If it fails, U.S. firms may cede the leadership and volume of EV trucks to Chinese companies. In many ways, this is a modern “Model T moment” for Ford – a test of whether a century-old industrial pioneer can reinvent itself fast enough, or risk becoming a footnote in automotive history.
Policy Implications
Ford’s plight highlights broader industrial policy issues. Chinese EV makers already control a large share of Europe’s EV market despite U.S. tariffs.
Detroit is lobbying for federal support to compete, while Chinese companies pour billions into overseas plants (e.g. in Mexico and Southeast Asia) to sidestep barriers.
How America responds – through subsidies, trade policy or industrial strategy – will heavily influence the final outcome of this auto-industry showdown.
Global Expansion
The international scale of the challenge is clear.
BYD now sells cars in over 70 countries and exported roughly 250,000–300,000 vehicles worldwide in 2024.
It’s building new factories in places like Mexico (as well as Thailand and Indonesia).
Ford’s question is whether its new, low-cost EV platform can stand up in all those markets – not just in America. In practice,
Ford will need its California-designed pickup to be globally competitive if it hopes to match Chinese brands abroad.
Technology Gap
A big part of the issue is software. Chinese startups treat cars more like smartphones, bundling AI assistants, voice recognition and seamless phone mirroring as standard.
As Farley observes, you can enter a Chinese EV and automatically have “your whole digital life…mirrored in the car”.
By contrast, most U.S. vehicles require manual pairing and don’t have built-in AI features.
That’s partly because Silicon Valley companies (Google, Apple, etc.) largely decided to stay out of making cars. Ford’s Long Beach team explicitly aims to fill that gap by building those software smarts in-house.
Cultural Shift
There’s also a cultural shift in what truck buyers want. Younger customers often prioritize tech-rich experiences over classic ruggedness.
They expect constant connectivity, app-like interfaces and frequent feature updates. Chinese EV brands – born in the consumer tech era – are especially good at that approach.
Ford’s challenge will be blending its traditional, hard-working truck image with the digital-centric expectations of new buyers.
The company must make vehicles that still feel robust and “Ford-ish” while delivering the high-tech features that consumers now demand.
Defining Moment
In the end, Ford’s Long Beach lab stands as a symbol. Observers (and Ford itself) have cast this as a new “Model T moment” – a chance to democratize a transformative technology again.
If the effort works, Ford could re-establish itself as a leader, proving that American manufacturing ingenuity can adapt to the EV era.
If it fails, Detroit may end up as a cautionary tale – much like the horse-and-buggy makers who vanished after the original Model T. The stakes could not be higher for Ford and the American auto industry.