Ford Wants to Get on the Three-Row Electric SUV “Bullet Train”

Ford CEO Jim Farley describes the new seven-passenger SUV as a “personalized bullet train.” The three-row Ford, which will go up against the freshly-announced electric Cadillac Escalade IQ, is being billed as an affordable, longer, sleeker, quieter vehicle with amazing size and interior space. The new electric truck he calls a “Millennium Falcon with a back porch.” Both are billed as groundbreaking.

“We could have converted an Expedition into an EV but it wouldn’t have made for a very good EV and it wouldn’t have made for a very good Expedition,” Doug Field, Ford chief advanced product development and technology officer said. A big, heavy, expensive 140 kW battery would be needed to get 300 miles of range on the highway. The product would be a compromised solution, Field told investors in Dearborn at a Capital Markets event to outline how the storied automaker is approaching the auto business differently under its year-old Ford+ growth plan.

Field says there is a bit of an arms race in the industry to put bigger batteries into EVs and make them like ICE vehicles. It baffles Farley. “I don’t understand why everyone is so obsessed by battery size,” the CEO says. Ford wants the next-gen EVs to have the smallest possible battery for competitive range in the 300 to 350 mile range.

A smaller battery, likely 100 kW, requires that the large three-row SUV be more efficient. It starts with lower resistance tires as the automaker works to squeeze out every bit of propulsion out with the help of computer simulations. The team also removed a lot of mass, lowered the ride height, and focused on aerodynamics, Field says.

It is a different product, unlike anything in the segment so far, Field says. “It’s a three-row family vehicle, 350 miles of range that can still cover 300 miles if you are cruising at 70 mph. It has a battery a third smaller and lighter and thousands of dollars less expensive.” With the same amount of scarce battery materials, Ford will produce three vehicles instead of two. With fast charging, the new large EV SUV will get 150 miles of range in less than 10 minutes.

Ford introduced a good first round of electric vehicles with the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning, says Doug Field, Ford chief advanced product development and technology officer. But for the second generation, Ford is investing only in segments where it knows it can win, like fullsize pickups and large SUVs where companies such as Tesla and BYD don’t play. The extra profit from the large EVs will make up for having to compete on cost with vehicles like the smaller two-row Mach-E SUV.

Farley said Ford started working on the next-gen vehicles a few years ago when it saw overcapacity and price issues coming like a freight train. The CEO has said repeatedly that Ford does not want to be chasing commoditized segments like two-row SUVs where there are about 200 nameplates competing in a crowded and mature space.

“We tried to be all things to all people, investing to get slivers of share. But this is new era,” Farley says. “The days of being all things to all people are over at Ford,” and Ford is playing a new game with new tools; focused on trucks, large SUVs, and commercial vehicles. And they will require less labor to build, and Ford would like to use direct sales. Being all things to all customers is not a good business model, concurs Chief Financial Officer John Lawler.

A year ago Ford reorganized itself into three global units: Ford Blue for ICE vehicles, Ford Model E for electric vehicles, and Ford Pro for commercial vehicles and services, to spearhead a new direction for a more efficient company.

It also showed the EV push does not mean that Ford will abandon those who want vehicles with internal combustion engines. People who tow will continue to buy vehicles with an ICE until EV is more reliable, says Kumar Galhotra, president of Ford Blue, the division that develops, builds, and sells traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines, including hybrids. North America is expected to have ICE sales well into the next decade, he says.

And the products will continue to be updated. BlueCruise, the hands-free driving assist system, will be rolled out to 500,000 vehicles in 2024 and the goal is to eventually offer Level 3 autonomy in all next-gen vehicles that have BlueCruise.