Podcast: Ford offers hype, investment promises for EVs in Louisville
Key takeaways
- There's more than a little bit of Tesla talk in Ford's announcement on Aug. 11, that it would invest $2 billion to retrofit its Louisville Assembly Plant to make a small electric pickup in 2027.
- It's a bold, ambitious plan that's equal parts going after Chinese competition, heating up leftover Tesla ideas and taking advantage of the scale of a massive global automaker.
- Pieces of the plan touch on multiple aspects of the manufacturing industry -- safety/ergonomics, manufacturing procedures, casting technologies and what the vehicle factory of the future might look like.
In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing podcast, IndustryWeek Editor-in-Chief Robert Schoenberger, who spent four years earlier in his career writing about the Ford plant for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, discusses Ford's plans, where it's fudging the numbers a bit, and how it hopes to create a new manufacturing paradigm in Kentucky, with a little help from Ford executives and engineers who spoke at the investment announcement.
Related articles and video:
- Ford rethinking the assembly line for EVs
- Ford adopts HPDC in new EV approach
- Ergonomics is key to Ford Louisville plant improvement
About the Podcast
Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast offers news and information for the people who make, store and move things and those who manage and maintain the facilities where that work gets done. Manufacturers from chemical producers to automakers to machine shops can listen for critical insights into the technologies, economic conditions and best practices that can influence how to best run facilities to reach operational excellence.