Ford to convert Kentucky factory to make EVs

Ford Motor Co. will invest nearly $2 billion retooling a Kentucky factory to produce electric vehicles that it says will be more affordable and more profitable to build and will outcompete rival models.

- BRUCE SCHREINER

FORD CEO Jim Farley told plant workers in Louisville, Ky., that he believes the new EV strategy will "change the face of our industry."

The automaker's chief executive unveiled the new EV strategy at Ford's Louisville Assembly Plant, which, after producing gas-powered vehicles for 70 years, will be converted to manufacture electric vehicles.

“In our careers, as automobile people we're lucky if we get to work on one, maybe two projects that really change the face of our industry,” CEO Jim Farley told plant workers Monday. “And I believe today is going to light the match as one of those projects for all of us here.”

The big Detroit automakers have continued to transition from internal combustion engines to EV technology even as President Trump’s administration unwinds incentives for automakers to go electric. Trump’s massive tax and spending law targets EV incentives, including the imminent removal of a credit that saves buyers up to $7,500 on a new electric car.

Yet Farley and other top executives in the auto industry say that electric vehicles are the future and that there is no going back.

The first EV to roll off the revamped Louisville assembly line will be a midsize, four-door electric pickup truck in 2027 for domestic and international markets, the company said Monday.