- Ford’s 70-year-old Louisville assembly plant will close this week for retooling.
- It will be the manufacturing center for future Ford electric vehicles.
- The automaker’s $30,000 electric truck will roll out of the factory in 2027.
Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck He may be officially dead In its current form, but the automaker is now working on introducing it “Model T” moment. The era of electricity in life. Part of that change includes a $2 billion retooling of Ford’s Louisville assembly plant, representing the most significant transformation in its 70-year history.
As the Dearborn automaker doubles down on combustion engine technology for its full-size trucks and SUVs, its electric vehicle strategy will refocus on the affordable end of the market. The Louisville assembly plant will serve as the launch pad for these next-generation battery-powered models.
Dec. 17 is scheduled to be the last day of work at the Louisville assembly plant as it prepares to close for an extended period of time for retooling. Courier Magazine First reported on Monday. This means it’s time to say goodbye to the Ford Escape and Lincoln Corsair crossovers, which end production this week.
Ford Louisville assembly plant
Photography: Suvrat Kothari
It’s a big moment for the Louisville assembly plant, which first opened in 1955 and has since become a production base for a full range of iconic Ford vehicles. At different stages of its history, it was produced SEDANS LIMITEDF series trucks, The guardBronco II, Explorer and even Mercury Mountaineer and the Mazda Navajo, which were rebadged versions of the Explorer.
From 2027 onward, the Louisville Assembly Plant will be the manufacturing hub for Ford’s $30,000 electric pickup truck that rides on the Universal EV platform. It will also be produced using a radical production process called the “assembly tree,” moving away from the century-old moving assembly line pioneered by Henry Ford in the early 1900s.
Instead, Ford’s next-generation electric vehicles, starting with the affordable truck, will be built in three separate sub-assemblies that eventually come together, just like a LEGO set. The platform itself will be high software definition, and will incorporate the latest technologies such as district architecture, fewer and simpler wires, and more powerful computing hardware.
Ford’s global electric vehicle production system
Photo by: Ford
When I visited the Louisville assembly plant in August for Ford’s electric vehicle announcements, The engineers said This factory of the future will be less physically stressful for line workers, with less bending and twisting required to install things like seats and dashboards thanks to a newer, simpler global electric vehicle production system.
However, some short-term disruptions are inevitable. Ford said in August that it would hire about 2,200 workers at the retooled facility, a decline of about 600 from current levels. These workers will be offered buyouts or transfers to other Ford plants, such as the nearby Kentucky Truck Plant.
The news comes as Ford officially ended production of the F-150 Lightning this month, citing tepid demand for large electric trucks. the Lightning next generation It will instead be a long-range electric vehicle with a gasoline generator with a range of more than 700 miles, as the automaker doubles its efforts in combustion engine technology amid slowing demand for electric vehicles and a decline in clean energy programs.
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