Ford Motor Company (F 0.04%) investors have had plenty to digest between a spike in recalls this year that drove an increase in warranty costs, tariffs and trade policy whipsawing back and forth, and a price war in China.
Finally, there's some intriguing news to digest in what Ford called its latest "Model T moment." But is this move to make a universal low-cost electric vehicle (EV) platform, and a new assembly tree, enough to make Ford a millionaire-maker stock?
Skunkworks
Ford is attempting to drive engineering and manufacturing forward with its announcement of the new Ford Universal EV Platform and Ford Universal EV Production System on Monday. Born of a "skunkworks" team based in California, the team created a simple, efficient, and flexible ecosystem to deliver a family of affordable, electric, and software-defined vehicles (SDVs).
"We took a radical approach to solve a very hard challenge: Create affordable vehicles that are breakthrough in every way that matters -- design, technology, performance, space and cost of ownership -- and do it with American workers," CEO Jim Farley said in a statement, according to Yahoo Finance.
More specifically, the new EV platform will underpin as many as eight models starting with an electric pickup truck in 2027 that will be closer in size to a Maverick than a Ranger. The four-door electric pickup truck will have more passenger space than a Toyota RAV4, a 0-60 time as fast as a Mustang EcoBoost, a sticker price around $30,000, and, most importantly of all, Ford says the pickup will be profitable.
Universal EV production system
Arguably as important as the first product turned out by the new production system is the process itself. Ford zeroed in on manufacturing efficiency and transformed its traditional assembly line into an "assembly tree," which will have three sub-assemblies running their lines simultaneously before joining the parts together.
Image source: Ford Motor Company.
Because of the new process and the new EV platform, assembly of the upcoming midsize electric truck could be up to 40% faster than current vehicles produced at the Louisville Assembly Plant. However, Ford plans to reinvest some of that time into automation to improve quality and cost, ultimately providing a 15% net speed improvement.
In addition to the assembly speed savings, numbers continue to tell the story with the EV platform reducing parts by 20%, compared to a typical vehicle, with 25% fewer fasteners and 40% fewer workstations dock-to-dock in the plant. Ford also believes the cost of ownership over five years will be lower than that of a three-year-old used Tesla Model Y.
What it all means
The fact that Ford could churn out a four-door electric pickup for $30,000 that's profitable by 2027 is a big deal. That's especially true when you consider it's not a one-off product, but rather the first entry in a family of up to eight more vehicles. It's a huge deal to take steps toward profitability because Ford's Model-e business division checked in with a hefty $2.18 billion loss during the first half of 2025. Reversing that loss in the near-term will provide a huge boost to the bottom line, and in theory the stock price.
But is this move enough to make Ford a millionaire-maker stock? Is it truly another revolutionary step in the spirit of a "Model T moment"?
Investors would likely be wise to temper their expectations in the near term, as Ford faces its fair share of headwinds. It faces a brutal price war in China that has caused foreign automakers to struggle for market share and profits. It faces ever-changing tariffs and trade policies that can cause bottlenecks in its supply chain and difficulty in planning ahead. Ford also faces a rise in recalls that it has struggled with in recent years, and the rising expenses associated with warranty costs.
Make no mistake, Ford's new assembly and new EV platform are a big, big deal. But before investors even buy into the new developments, much less become millionaires from owning the stock, Ford has to execute the new technology and actually deliver this pickup profitably for $30,000 – we haven't seen it yet. Then it has to follow that up with a line of other successful EVs.
To put it simply, Ford needs to not only execute its new platform launches, but it needs much more than a new EV platform to make investors millionaires.
