June 10, 2026
Pickup promises, comment-section knives
How do you design a $30k electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks
Ford says a cheap electric truck is coming, but the comments are already calling bluff
TLDR: Ford says its special California team is trying to build a $30,000 electric pickup despite a rough market for electric vehicles. Commenters were far less dreamy, with many doubting Ford can hit that price and others arguing smaller startups or Chinese brands may beat it to the punch.
Ford invited reporters into its secretive California workshop to show off the mission: build a $30,000 electric pickup at a time when the U.S. market looks rough for battery-powered cars. Tax breaks are gone, tariffs are pushing prices up, and other companies are backing away. Ford’s pitch is basically, “Yes, it’s ugly out there, but we’re still going for it.” The company says this special team is meant to cut through big-company red tape and finally make a more affordable electric truck happen.
But in the comments? The real sparks were flying. A big chunk of readers responded with the online version of a skeptical eyebrow raise. One person basically said, “Cute plan, but we’ve seen this movie before,” pointing out that past promises of affordable electric vehicles somehow turned into $65,000 price tags. Another camp immediately dragged competitors into the chat, with people saying Slate seems closer to actually shipping a cheap electric pickup, while another commenter went even more global and declared, with zero chill, that buyers elsewhere can “just buy a BYD Shark 6 instead.”
There was also some classic comment-section comedy: one reader suggested maybe Americans should just embrace electric vans because they make more sense, but admitted pickups are the emotional support vehicle of the U.S. internet. And while a few readers genuinely loved Ford’s look at the famous “14 rules” for running a secret project team, the overall mood was clear: interesting tour, nice history lesson, now show us the truck at the promised price.
Key Points
- •Ford is developing its future EV lineup around a modular Universal Electric Vehicle platform announced in late 2025.
- •Much of that work is being carried out at Ford’s Electric Vehicle Development Center in Long Beach, California.
- •The article says Ford is pursuing a skunkworks-style development model to reduce bureaucracy and speed up vehicle development.
- •The piece places Ford’s effort in a difficult US EV market shaped by the loss of the federal EV tax credit, higher costs from tariffs, and canceled programs at other automakers such as Honda.
- •Alan Clarke, Ford’s vice president of Advanced Development Projects and a former Tesla development executive, leads the EVDC effort alongside UEV program director Jolanta Coffey.