Ford’s Louisville Assembly Plant is taking shape around an entirely new way of building electric vehicles as the automaker prepares to produce the Ford Fathom midsize electric truck in 2027.

The 3-million-square-foot Kentucky plant is undergoing a $2 billion overhaul to transition from producing gas-powered vehicles to supporting Ford’s Universal EV Production System, or UEV Production System. Ford said teams remain on track to begin Fathom prototype builds using production-qualified parts in the first quarter of 2027, with customer vehicles following later in the year.

The Fathom will be the first vehicle produced on Ford’s Universal EV platform.

Ford’s broader $5 billion investment, which includes Louisville Assembly Plant and BlueOval Battery Park Michigan, is expected to create 4,000 jobs and has helped fund new equipment designed specifically for the UEV Production System.

Rebuilding Louisville Around a New Assembly Process

Preparing Louisville Assembly Plant for the Fathom required Ford to essentially strip the facility down to its shell.

During demolition, crews removed nearly 25,000 gross tons of scrap metal, enough to fill 2,618 truckloads for recycling. By February 2026, much of the plant’s existing production equipment had been cleared away.

“If you stood in the middle of the factory floor, you could see all four walls,” said Brian McGauley, Louisville Assembly Plant manager.

Crews have since poured approximately 230,000 square feet of concrete to support new final assembly equipment and used nearly 700 miles of welding wire to stabilize the plant’s new overhead truss system.

Ford has also expanded the plant’s digital infrastructure. Wi-Fi coverage density has nearly tripled, increasing from 385 access points to 1,080 to support the high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity required by the new production system.

Inside the plant, the UEV Production System now includes approximately 17,000 feet of conveyor in final assembly, which Ford said would stretch the equivalent of about 12 Empire State Buildings placed end to end.

Ford Replaces the Assembly Line With an Assembly Tree

At the center of the transformation is what Ford calls an “assembly tree.” Instead of moving a largely complete vehicle body down a conventional assembly line, the UEV Production System divides production into three primary sections: the front of the vehicle, the rear, and a structural battery section that also incorporates components such as the seats, consoles, and carpeting.

Those sections can be worked on in parallel before being assembled together.

Large aluminum unicastings form the front and rear portions of the vehicle, replacing dozens of individually stamped and welded parts. Because each casting is structurally complete, workers can begin installing components without first assembling an entire body shell.

On the third branch of the production system, interior components are installed on top of the structural battery, which serves as the vehicle floor. The battery is later installed into the vehicle from underneath.

Ford said the design allows more employees to work on the vehicle simultaneously while reducing the amount of bending, reaching, and maneuvering required during assembly.

“We’ve engineered an 84% reduction in reaching over the fender,” said Bryce Currie, Ford chief manufacturing officer. “The wiring harness is also more than 4,000 feet shorter and 22 pounds lighter than in our first-gen electric SUV, making it much easier to install.”

Louisville employees have also been involved in developing and testing the manufacturing process at Ford’s New Model Programs Development Center in Allen Park, Michigan.

Faster Assembly With More Automation

Ford expects the UEV Production System to assemble the Fathom 40% faster than the products previously built at Louisville Assembly Plant. The company is reinvesting some of that time into additional automation and insourced processes, resulting in what Ford said will be a net assembly improvement of 15%.

The plant will also have Ford’s highest level of final assembly automation globally.

New processes include a software module flash station that updates vehicle modules before they are installed. Previously, Ford said software flashing occurred after vehicle assembly, with detected issues potentially adding about 10 minutes per vehicle.

Private 5G connectivity will also allow operators to perform some quality checks while vehicles continue moving through the assembly process.

“It is simply foundationally different from how we have done things before,” said Kevin Young, advanced program manufacturing chief for Ford. “Operators can see everything in front of them and don’t need to bend or reach to do it.”

Ford plans to begin taking preorders for the Fathom in early 2027, ahead of customer production later that year.