Ford Motor Company F is set to invest $700 million for the expansion of its River Rouge manufacturing plant near Dearborn, MI. The company’s first fully-electric F-150 pick-up truck will be developed in this facility. Management expects the sales of the F-150 truck to commence by mid-2022.
 
Ford is very optimistic about setting a up new manufacturing unit to serve as the base for building its battery-powered versions of the F-150 pick-up truck, which will serve as a game changer for the company.
 
The Rouge Electric Vehicle Center will enable battery assembly and production of the new Powerboost Hybrid F-150 and fully-electric F-150, flaunting its new powertrain that has more power and torque than combustion trucks. Additionally, the expanded plant will create 300 more job requirements for the manufacturing of the upgraded truck fleet.
 
Ford aims to revolutionize the auto space by downsizing the cost of its new electric F-150 truck. The company expects the total cost of ownership to be approximately 40% lower than its gasoline-powered counterparts, over the life of the truck, making it much more affordable by customers. Also, without any air filters, or requirement of transmission restoration, electric vehicles require much lesser maintenance than combustion vehicles. Moreover, electric vehicles can be charged overnight, saving valuable runtime wasted in refueling the gasoline truck.

Unlike other electric-pickup trucks that are designed for lifestyle customers like the upcoming models from Tesla TSLA, Rivian and General Motors GM, the all-electric F-150 is targeted for hard working blue-collar workers that need a truck as part of their jobs. Thus, Ford will continue its tradition of being known as a truck for workers with the latest truck.
 
The Dearborn-based automaker has also enhanced the functionality of the F-series with the new electric F-150. The electric F-150 has a giant front truck, or frunk, which creates an additional storage space in the front of the truck to safely store job site tools, thus converting the front space into a lockable, secure, out-of-sight storage for owners.

The truck will keep customers at the forefront of technology as well, with its automatic electric braking, hands-free driving for more than 100,000 miles. Usage of advanced technology in the electric F-150 will also allow mobile-power generation, which will help people use the trucks to power job-site tools or anything on a campsite.

The performance of the electric F-150 will be elevated with the use of the battery and the dual electric motors, and its appearance and feel will be different too, but the model will remain true to its roots of ‘Built Ford Tough’. To ensure this, the e-truck has undergone thousands of hours of torture testing with a target of millions of hours of testing in the real world.
 
Ford with this robust, enticing and affordable electric F-150, will mark the beginning of a new era for the auto industry. With the latest truck, Ford will take the EV race a notch higher, though the F-150 will be rolled out after Tesla’s Cybertruck or General Motors’ Hummer electric pick-up hit the roads, both scheduled for 2021.

Zacks Rank

Ford currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Notably, shares of Ford have declined 21.7% year to date against its industry’s rally of 144.3%.

Another top-ranked player in the auto space is Polaris Inc PII, which flaunts a Zacks Rank of 1 at present.

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