Ford has completed the EV retooling for the Louisville Assembly Plant in less than one year. The 70+ year old plant made gas cars for decades, but is now getting ready to make the all-electric $30,000 Ford Fathom electric truck using a radically different "assembly tree" manufacturing process. To make the change, Ford's demolition crews removed tens of thousands of tonnes of old equipment used to manufacture gas cars. The factory was practically an empty hall at the end of it, after which Ford installed the new equipment for its Universal EV Production system, in which three of the Fathom's sub assemblies will be made independently and then brought together at the end using bolts and adhesives. Prototypes will start rolling out of LAP in Q1 2027 and customer deliveries are expected to begin in the fall of next year.
