Ford Invents The Assembly Line (Again) By Deconstructing The Assembly Line

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Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, knows a few things.

He knows that it is inevitable that EVs are the future of his business, even if his dealers don’t agree (yet).

He knows that his current EVs have too much fucking wire in them. And that’s a bigger problem than you might have realized.

He knows that his company’s vehicles aren’t competitive with those made by Chinese OEMs. That’s why he made the Xiaomi SU7 his daily driver for half a year. He wanted to understand what he was up against.

He knows that the current bullshit tariff pain his company is suffering will pass (eventually). He just needs to sell enough F-150s in the interim to not give a shit.

He also knows that some of those same bullshit tariffs are the only thing separating Ford from having to compete directly with companies that manufacture PHEVs with double the range and EVs that are a quarter of the price or cheaper than his current nameplates.

And he knows that he needed to hire someone from outside of Ford to upend the way Ford was doing things to be more competitive.

Doug Field enters the chat.

You might not know Doug Field. He got his start at Ford over thirty years ago, but he’s also responsible for the original Segway. His hands are all over the Tesla Model 3. He worked at Apple (twice), where he was described as the “Apple Car Chief” overseeing the now-defunct Project Titan, the Apple Car project.

When we look back at this era of automotive history, we might weigh Doug Field’s impact on the industry as more significant than Elon Musk’s.

If anyone can build new, exciting, electric Fords, Doug can.

And it looked like we were going to see what Doug was up to on August 11th at Ford’s self-proclaimed Model T moment event.

Sadly, Ford’s Model T moment may have been over hyped (Ford, stop trying to make “fetch” happen).

If you’re like me, you were hoping to see Ford show off their new compact electric truck built to compete with Slate Auto.

But that isn’t what we got.

Instead, Jim wore a reflective vest and talked about investing in assembly lines.

They talked about a truck.

They told us they will build a truck.

But they didn’t show us a truck. (Dammit Jim, show us the truck!)

Assembly lines?

Yes, assembly lines.

Ford plans to reinvent the assembly line by deconstructing it.

They invented it in the first place, so it stands to reason that if you were going to leverage first principles thinking, you’d start where it all began—on the line.

And I think Doug Field is a master at first principles.

He’s taking what he built for Tesla, a process that allows them to assemble a Model 3 in 90 minutes, taking only 40 steps, and adapting it for Ford.

Using single-piece aluminum unicastings, likely leveraging technology and learnings for their R&D with IDRA Group’s giga presses, they can replace dozens of smaller parts, assembling Ford’s new vehicles in three segments.

“We build the whole middle, front, and rear separately—and then, at the end, we put them together,” says Farley. “No one’s ever built a car that way.”

It is a bold (albeit boring) plan.

Build a universal system to assemble cars on a new scalable EV battery platform with speed and cost efficiency at its core.

“We build a structural battery out of the cells, and that is the floor of the vehicle. So we actually built the seats on it,” says Field.

There’s no frame or structure with a battery on top of it to which the seats are bolted; with Ford’s new models, the battery is the structure.

Will Ford’s plan work?

Only if time is on their side.

China is swallowing the rest of the automotive world while Ford and GM hide on the tariff-restricted automotive island of North America.

Thankfully and ironically, Americans aren’t interested in buying EVs at the moment.

With the tariff time buffer that both Joe Biden and The Donald have put in place, Ford has a chance to build something amazing between now and their expected mystery truck launch date of 2027.

If they do this right, Ford could build a vehicle that will capture the imagination of unlikely EV buyers at a price point that makes it easy to put two Fords in your driveway.

Tesla learns that operating a restaurant is hard. eater.com

Tesla can’t deliver on the promise of “epic bacon”. reddit.com

Does Elon want you to be able to play 4K video games inside future Tesla vehicles? Maybe, yes. theverge.com

Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s AI feud ramps up. time.com

California regulators rejected a US military plan to increase SpaceX launches. politico.com

SpaceX relies on federal contracts, but years of losses have most likely allowed it to avoid paying federal income taxes. nytimes.com

4AG (pronounced “forage”) Robotics has secured a $40M investment to expand its artificial intelligence-based mushroom harvesting robots business. cbc.ca

Nvidia released a set of new world AI models, libraries, and other infrastructure for robotics developers. techcrunch.com

Dear Mary Barra, if you build this Cadillac Elevated Velocity concept, I will buy one. theverge.com

Canada imported more cars from Mexico than from the US for the first time in 30 years. carscoops.com

The all-new Acura RSX will be a sexy looking EV built on Honda’s new in-house Asimo operating system. theverge.com

Lamborghini’s new plug-in hybrid is the fastest car it has ever built. theverge.com

GM wants to rehire some of the Cruise employees it let go. theverge.com

Stellantis lays off a “small number” of workers in Windsor. cbc.ca

Toyota to enter South Africa's EV market with three models in 2026. reuters.com

Insurance company sues Nissan, dealership after recalled Pathfinder starts blaze that damages homes. autonews.com

Lucid introduced an off-road version of the Gravity SUV after debunking a report that suggested it had only sold nine of its Gravity SUVs in the first six months of sales. theverge.com

VinFast’s founder, Pham Nhat Vuong, drops another $1.5 billion into his own company by buying its research division. reuters.com

Joby flew its eVOTL from the Marina (OAR) to Monterey (MRY) airports, making history as the first piloted air taxi flight between two public airports. youtube.com

A new Spotify integration will let you connect your account to Waymo, allowing you to rock out to your favourite hair metal in your robotaxi. techcrunch.com

The Donald’s administration has issued new guidance regarding how states can use the $5 billion in funding for EV charging infrastructure, after months of withholding it. techcrunch.com

Global EV sales grew 21% year-on-year in July. reuters.com

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