Crédit photo: Image via The Autopian — Autonomy. Used under fair use for news commentary. · source
Look, I'm going to say something that might get me in trouble with the Tesla crowd and the legacy auto defenders alike: Ford might actually be onto something with this secret electric truck, and it's precisely because they're not trying to reinvent the wheel.
I've seen this movie before. Every few years, some automaker announces they're going to democratize electric vehicles, bring EVs to the masses, make the $30,000 electric car that changes everything. And every time, the price creeps up, the launch gets delayed, and we end up with another $45,000 "affordable" option that's affordable only if you're already doing pretty well. Call me old-fashioned, but I remember when a cheap truck was actually cheap.
So when The Autopian got an exclusive look at Ford's Skunkworks electric pickup, the thing that caught my attention wasn't the camo wrap or the secretive development process. It was the size. This thing is small. Way smaller than you'd expect from a company that's been supersizing the F-150 for two decades.
Ford's been quietly developing this vehicle at their west coast Skunkworks facility, and the approach is refreshingly practical. Rather than trying to compete with the Cybertruck's stainless steel theater or Rivian's adventure-lifestyle branding, they're apparently just trying to make a compact electric truck that regular people might actually be able to afford.
À lire aussi
More in Autonomy
New research from NASA JPL and university labs shows reinforcement learning can teach rovers to handle loose soil without getting stuck, cutting energy use by 37% on sandy slopes.
James Chen · 5 hours ago · 6 min
A batch of new papers suggests the field is moving past toy problems, but I've seen this movie before.
Robert "Bob" Macintosh · 9 hours ago · 3 min
Two new papers tackle the geometry problem that's kept cheap, wide-angle cameras from reaching their potential in autonomous systems.
James Chen · 12 hours ago · 5 min
IR-SIM and HA-VLN 2.0 take different approaches to the same challenge, and both reveal how far we still have to go.
The target price is sub-$30,000, which, if they actually hit it (big if, I know), would make this one of the cheapest new electric vehicles on the market. For context, the average new car transaction price in America is hovering around $48,000 these days. The average EV is even higher. A genuinely affordable electric truck would be, well, kind of a big deal.
But here's where my skepticism kicks in, because I've covered enough product launches to know that "target price" and "actual sticker price" are often very different animals. The Chevy Bolt was supposed to be the affordable EV that changed everything too, and while it did eventually get there after years of price cuts and a battery recall that nearly killed it, the path wasn't exactly smooth.
The Autopian's reporting suggests this truck is genuinely compact, not a full-size pickup that's been slightly trimmed down. This is significant because one of the fundamental problems with electric trucks has been weight. Batteries are heavy. Big trucks need big batteries. Big batteries cost money. The math doesn't work unless you either charge a fortune (Rivian, Ford Lightning) or accept compromises nobody wants to make.
A smaller truck needs a smaller battery. A smaller battery costs less. It's not complicated, but it requires Ford to admit something the American truck market has been in denial about for years: not everyone needs a vehicle that can tow a boat while seating six adults comfortably.
I'm old enough to remember when compact trucks were everywhere. The Ford Ranger (the old one, not the current mid-size thing), the Chevy S-10, the Toyota pickup that became the Tacoma. These were working vehicles for people who needed a truck bed but didn't need to compensate for anything. They were cheap, they were practical, and they sold like crazy.
Then the automakers figured out they could make more money on bigger trucks with higher margins, and the compact truck basically disappeared from America. The current "small" trucks are bigger than the full-size trucks from 20 years ago!
Ford developing this at their Skunkworks operation is interesting for a few reasons. It suggests they're trying to work outside the normal corporate bureaucracy that tends to bloat vehicles with features and, consequently, costs. It also suggests they might be serious about actually hitting that price target, since Skunkworks projects typically have more freedom to make unconventional choices.
The Autopian is actually asking readers to send in photos if they spot the truck testing, which tells you something about where we are in the development cycle. It's out there, it's real, but Ford's being pretty tight-lipped about specifics. We don't know the exact dimensions, the battery size, the range, or (crucially) whether that $30,000 price includes the destination charge and dealer markup that always seem to materialize at the last minute.
What we do know is that Ford's calling this their "Universal EV platform," which suggests they're planning to use it for more than just this one truck. That's smart, if they can pull it off. Platform sharing is how you actually get costs down, not through wishful thinking and press releases.
Now, I should be clear about what we don't know, which is quite a lot. We don't know when this thing will actually launch. We don't know if Ford can maintain that price point once they start actually building it at scale. We don't know how the dealer network will react (and if you've tried to buy an EV from a traditional dealer lately, you know that's not a small concern).
There's also the broader market question. EV sales have cooled somewhat from the frenzy of a couple years ago. Some of that is interest rates, some is charging infrastructure anxiety, some is just the natural settling after a hype cycle. Whether there's actually a mass market for a $30,000 electric truck remains to be seen, it's too early to say with any confidence.
But here's the thing, and this is where I'll stick my neck out a bit: the auto industry has been chasing the wrong customers for years now. They've been building EVs for early adopters, for tech enthusiasts, for people who can afford to spend $60,000 on a statement vehicle. The actual mass market, the people who buy used Civics and keep them for ten years, has been largely ignored.
If Ford can actually deliver a small, cheap, practical electric truck, they might find that market is bigger than anyone expected. Or they might find that Americans really do want enormous vehicles regardless of cost, and this whole thing will quietly disappear like so many other "affordable" EV promises.
I'm cautiously optimistic, which for me is practically giddy enthusiasm. Ford has the manufacturing scale to actually build something like this affordably. They have the brand recognition that matters to truck buyers. And they seem to have learned at least some lessons from the Lightning, which was a good truck that was also too expensive for most people.
The real test will come when we see actual pricing, actual specs, and actual availability. Until then, this is a promising development from a company that needed one, but it's not yet a product you can buy. If you spot one testing, though, definitely send those photos to The Autopian. And if you want to argue about whether compact trucks are the future or a dead end, my email's on the about page.
But what do I know. I'm just a guy who remembers when you could buy a new truck for under $15,000 and nobody thought that was remarkable.
