Ford Motor Co. has hit the brakes on two battery-electric programs, telling suppliers — and now confirming publicly — that its next-generation full-size EV pickup scheduled for BlueOval City in Stanton, TN, and a follow-up E-Transit van planned for Avon Lake, OH, will not enter volume production until 2028, a year later than the most recent timeline and two years beyond original targets.
The company disclosed the revised launch windows to employees and vendors in June and confirmed the move Aug. 7 to Automotive News, saying the shift allows it to align capital spending with “market needs and customer demand” while improving profitability, according to a spokesperson.
CEO Jim Farley has referenced the pivot for months, touting an internal “skunkworks” project aimed at building a compact, sub-$30,000 electric pickup that will debut in 2027 on a newly developed, low-cost architecture. In Ford’s Q2 2025 earnings call on July 30, Farley called the forthcoming reveal a “Model T moment.” More details about the low-cost pickup are expected to be released Aug. 11.
Pushing the high-dollar full-size EV truck to 2028 frees engineering resources for the low-cost program and lets Ford wait for next-generation LFP battery packs that could materially lower cell costs. It also avoids flooding a cooling EV market with another six-figure truck; F-150 Lightning sales have softened as incentives wane and interest rates stay high.
The latest delay extends a pattern that began last year when Ford scrubbed plans for a three-row electric crossover and bumped the “T3” pickup to late 2027. Earlier this year, supplier memos revealed that even Ford’s gas and hybrid F-150 redesign was pushed out “by at least a year” to mid-2028, stretching the current generation’s life cycle.
BlueOval City—the $5.6 billion Tennessee complex designed for 500,000 trucks a year—will still start building pilot units of the “T3” pickup in 2027 before ramping in 2028, the Ford spokesperson said Aug. 7. Battery output from the joint-venture BlueOval SK plant on the same site is likewise pushed back; the company now says start-of-production will be “dictated by market demand” rather than a fixed calendar target.
For Ford, success hinges on proving that its low-cost platform can be profitable. Farley told analysts on the second-quarter call that the company is targeting “EBIT-positive” results within the first year of each future EV launch — a stark contrast to the $1.3 billion second-quarter loss logged by the Model e division.
