BlueOval City is designed to be Ford’s first carbon neutral vehicle manufacturing and battery campus.
Photo: Ford
4 min to read
Ford, the No. 2 EV brand in the U.S. in 2022, shared details noting that it is on track with construction at BlueOval City mega-campus. The electric vehicle and battery manufacturing campus in West Tennessee begins production in 2025, and will be home to Ford’s second-generation electric truck, code named Project T3, as well as capable of producing 500,000 EV trucks a year at full production.
“BlueOval City is the blueprint for Ford’s electric future around the world,” said Bill Ford, Ford’s executive chair. “We will build revolutionary electric vehicles at an advanced manufacturing site that works in harmony with the planet, aligning business growth and innovation with environmental progress.”
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A live event took place on YouTube March 24, 2023 showing off construction progress and talking about the growth in the West Tennessee community.
Partnering for the Future
Ford and partner SK On are investing $5.6 billion in the campus and creating approximately 6,000 new jobs. Ford has launched a comprehensive education and training effort called BlueOval Learning to prepare future employees.
According to a company statement, BlueOval City is designed to be Ford’s first carbon neutral vehicle manufacturing and battery campus as Ford works to power all Ford plants globally with renewable and carbon-free electricity by 2035.
“Project T3 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revolutionize America’s truck. We are melding 100 years of Ford truck know-how with world-class electric vehicle, software and aerodynamics talent. It will be a platform for endless innovation and capability,” said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO. “PJ O’Rourke once described American pickups as ‘a back porch with an engine attached.’ Well, this new truck is going to be like the Millennium Falcon – with a back porch attached."
BlueOval City also is a key part of Ford’s plan to scale EV production and make them more accessible to customers; the company is targeting a production run rate of 2 million EVs annually across the globe by late 2026.
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Digging into Project T3
With its F-150 Lightning, Ford already has shifted people’s expectations about the capability, driving enjoyment and productivity EV pickups can deliver. Ford’s stated that its Project T3 aims to further grow and reinvent the Ford truck franchise.
Ford is developing its second-generation EV truck in tandem with the all-new assembly plant, resulting in efficiencies never before possible – such as a 30% smaller general assembly footprint than traditional plants while delivering higher production capacity.
Meanwhile, Project T3 team members are ensuring they deliver the capability and innovation customers expect from Ford trucks with a fraction of the complexity from previous truck programs.
Project T3 is short for “Trust The Truck” – a code name that stuck after the development team made it their rallying cry. The team’s single guiding principle has been to create a truck people can trust in the digital age – one that’s:
Fully updatable.
Constantly improving.
Supports towing, hauling, exportable power, and new innovations.
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Making a Modern Assembly Plant
The assembly plant will use carbon-free electricity from the day it opens. Ford noted that for the first time in 120 years, it is using recovered energy from the site’s utility infrastructure and geothermal system to provide carbon-free heat for the assembly plant – saving about 300 million cubic feet of natural gas typically needed each year to heat similarly sized vehicle assembly plants.
The campus’ new utility system will save 50 million gallons of water each year by reducing evaporation from the site’s cooling towers. Plus, the zero-waste-to-landfill site is designed to use no fresh water for its assembly processes. Ford also intends to develop a holistic stormwater management system separate from the water table to help protect the local environment.
The 3,600-acre campus also has a fully integrated BlueOval SK battery manufacturing site. On-site, the team will build battery cells and arrays and assemble battery packs that will be delivered just across the site into the assembly plant, in less than 30 minutes.
In addition, BlueOval City is developing an on-site supplier park and will have an upfit center capable of adding in dozens of Ford trucks’ most popular features – including robotically installed spray-in bedliners and integrated tool boxes before the pickups are released to dealers and customers.
To help reduce traffic congestion and emissions, the campus also has some unique features:
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An on-site Lowe’s store supplying building materials.
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