Ford says its $2B Fathom EV factory overhaul remains on track

Ford made a $2 billion bet two years ago when it closed its Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky and scrapped the moving assembly line system it had used for more than a century. Its goal was to transform the factory into one capable of building a new generation of affordable EVs. The automaker said Thursday that the overhaul is on track, and in 2027 the plant will be ready to start producing the Fathom, an all-electric midsize truck priced under $30,000 — the first EV built on Ford’s new universal platform. Ford expects to begin prototype builds in the first quarter of 2027, with customer vehicles following later in the year, and is already testing production-level tooling ahead of the prototypes.

The stakes are high: Ford’s previous EV efforts weighed on profitability, while Chinese competitors and Tesla pulled ahead with vehicles that sell at volume and with a profit margin. To catch up, Ford abandoned the moving assembly line its founder, Henry Ford, launched, turning instead to a system developed by a skunkworks team led by former Tesla executive Alan Clarke. This “universal production system” uses a three-branched assembly tree: large single-piece aluminum unicastings — a technique Tesla popularized, using far fewer parts — let the front and rear of the vehicle be assembled separately on two branches, while a third branch assembles the structural battery with seats, consoles, and carpeting; the three pieces come together at the end of the line.

As part of the rebuild, Ford also nearly tripled the factory’s Wi-Fi coverage density, to 1,080 access points, to support the high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity that software quality checks require. The company said it will be able to assemble the Fathom a net 15% faster than the vehicles previously built at the Louisville plant, and that some employees have already spent months training on the new system at its New Models Program Development Center in Allen Park, Michigan.

Why it matters

Ford is betting its next EV generation on throwing out a century-old manufacturing model entirely — a wager it needs to pay off given how far Tesla and Chinese automakers have pulled ahead on cost and speed.