Doug Field, Chief EV of Ford, Digital and Design Officer, who previously was corrected AppleThe automotive program and was led by the development of model 3 in Tesla, developed the Ford’s Skunkworks team secretly developing this project, indicated internally as Ce1.
“We build a structural battery from the cells, and this is the vehicle floor. So in reality we built the seats on it,” says Field. So, to be clear, there is no frame or structure with a battery above which the seats are attached, with the new model of Ford the battery is the structure. How does it differ from existing cell-chassis technology or cell-cachetic? “This is cell cell,” says Field, and adds that making everything that works has been very, very difficult.
“There is no single magic turning point. It’s just really hard engineering,” he says. “And there are a lot of problems to solve. For example, now you have this body that has no floor, how do you commit to bending while going down online? How do you manage the paint when you painted the rear half, but you did not paint the front half and then go put them together?”
“We knew we wanted to build [EVs] otherwise and we decided how we wanted to build them, then we got a Huge Set of engineering problems that we had to solve to make this work. “The worst of these problems? Sealing, crash [strength]Corrosion, dimensional precision: all these things, doing those in the end is … That frontal joint is certainly the most difficult. “
Yes, much of this is reaching cutting -edge things for EV, such as the zonal architecture in which the different functions are controlled in different parts of the car, which you can already see in the new Tesla Model Y and in many electric vehicles of China. Likewise, the great aluminum jets are already used by Tesla and Chinese producers.
However, if Ford has really managed to produce a car in three distinct and complete modules, which are then completed completely and only then fooled together, this is a real genuine. Yes, Tesla spoke of doing something like that in 2023 With its production process of EV “Uncoxed”, but has not yet done so. In other words, Ford may have beaten Tesla in the punch here. The old dinosaur has turned into a Vellociraptor.
Almost impressive as the new modular production of Ford is the number of people and the pure speed with which the company has reached this undeniable victory. “What is really interesting is the size of the team [the skunkworks had] Compared to what Ford should do it, “says Farley.” If we forced [Ford] Do it, it would take people five times. “
“When we decided to start the program, three years ago, we hired Alan Clarke. It went to a building, and it was a person. This is how the project started,” says Field. Alan Clarke He worked for Field in Tesla, where he contributed to creating model 3, he worked on Y, Cybertruck and more. “There are people in China who probably have probably overcome him, but at the time he had filed more electric vehicles than anyone else in the world, so he was absolutely the right person who touched. And he is also a talented magnet. He built the team very quickly-a world class team. A lot of people who are super excited by a Riviano or a Tesla and built something for Ford.”
Farley thinks that Ford’s new way of creating EV is the perfect weapon to face Chinese car manufacturers, the ideal example of how the West needs to compete. “You have the byd model: 700,000 employees, 200,000 engine engineers. How do you fight them?” Farley asks.
“It turns out that Doug and Alan and the team built a propulsion system that was like Apollo 13, he managed to Watt so that our battery can be much smaller than by Byd. Their advantage in terms of costs on vertical integration on the battery is compensated by innovation in the engine.
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