Landmark pick-up truck moves a step closer to US launch – and will offer more space than a Toyota RAV4
Ford’s moonshot electric pick-up will be called the Fathom and be priced from $28,350 (£21,000) when launched in the US early next year, the company has confirmed.
The moniker references the double meaning of a ‘fathom’: the standard length of a pair of outstretched arms and the discovery of meaning.
Ford claims the Fathom “welcomes you in with an expansive interior and technology that adapts on the fly”.
It will be the first model built on Ford’s new Formula 1-influenced affordable EV platform and, as previously reported by Autocar, it could eventually be offered in the UK to complement the company’s revamped European car line-up.
The new platform, called Universal EV, features “cooler engineering than a hypercar”, according to Ford CEO Jim Farley. It has been developed by a ‘skunkworks’ project in California set up by Ford to work semi-independently. It will eventually spawn a range of ‘global’ vehicles.
A teaser video displaying early sketches of the Fathom shows how Ford is rethinking its approach to design and engineering, with dramatically different styling to its existing combustion-engined trucks.
Ford hasn’t yet confirmed whether Universal EV products will be offered in Europe, but it could be used for EVs arriving after the company’s Renault-platformed small hatchback and crossover, due in 2028.
Since the project is largely a clean-sheet design, Ford has recruited staff from outside the mainstream car industry – with a focus on motorsport, given the belief that lessons on efficiency and aerodynamics learned in competition can give it an edge over Chinese rivals.
Speaking exclusively to Autocar, Farley said: “One of the biggest gifts that Formula 1 ever gave Ford was our skunkworks team in California. Almost every one of them either comes from F1 or is a huge F1 fan.”
Farley added that the bulk of the skunkworks staff “have never worked in the auto industry before” but “we picked them for their aerodynamic knowledge” – although he acknowledged that had been a challenge.
“It turns out that finding people who love motorsport who want to ‘build a buffet in Vegas’ – a $30,000 EV that’s nice-looking and fun to drive – is hard,” he said.
“A lot of people want to stay in F1, and the challenge is picking people from motorsport who can actually design a breakthrough product.
“But when people see what we did with this skunkworks, they will say: ‘Wow, that’s cooler engineering than a hypercar.’ They will be shocked.”
Farley said the extreme aerodynamic focus of modern F1 cars was a key attraction in recruiting people for the skunkworks.
“Every bit of aero we can improve will help us reduce the size of the battery, and F1 has the best aero people in the world,” Farley said.
As a result, Ford claims the Fathom is 15% more aerodynamically efficient than any pick-up currently on sale in the US.
Farley said the intense focus on aerodynamics and powertrain efficiency would enable Universal EV models to use smaller batteries, in turn keeping weight and pricing down and improving packaging options.
Indeed, Ford claims the Fathom has more passenger space than the Toyota RAV4 SUV.
Farley highlighted this as a particular area where Ford can outperform Chinese rivals, some of which he said “have really cheap batteries, and that’s their problem”.
He continued: “Their control systems – the efficiency of the motors, inverters and gearbox and how they all work together with the software – aren’t that efficient, so they’re carrying around a bunch of battery they don’t need to.
“We’ve found 20-30% gains in efficiency, but we had to get people over from motorsport to do it.”
Universal EV models will also make extensive use of megacasting, meaning whole segments of the body are cast as single parts, to help reduce the complexity and further lower costs.
The first vehicles based on the platform will be built at a new US factory in Kentucky.
