Ford's BlueOval City set to produce 500,000 electric pickups a year

STANTON, Tenn. — Ford Motor Co. on Friday said its BlueOval City manufacturing plant here will be able to produce 500,000 electric pickups per year when it comes online in 2025.

The site will build a next-generation truck that CEO Jim Farley has said would not be another F-150 Lightning. Ford on Friday said the vehicle program is codenamed "Project T3," which is short for "trust the truck," a mantra engineers and designers have used while developing it.

"Project T3 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revolutionize America's truck," Farley said in a statement. "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."

Ford and battery partner SK On are investing $5.6 billion in BlueOval City, which also will include a battery plant and supplier park. The companies plan to create approximately 6,000 new jobs at the site 50 miles northeast of Memphis, and on Friday they detailed a talent development program called BlueOval Learning for future employees.

Employee recruiting and training efforts will include outreach and partnerships with area schools as well as a $40 million training center.

BlueOval City is key to Ford's plan to produce 2 million EVs globally by the end of 2026. Ford has said the site is designed to be its first carbon-neutral vehicle manufacturing and battery campus and is being built to be more efficient than other vehicle plants.

Farley said the manufacturing process will include "radical simplicity, cost efficiency and quality technology that will make BlueOval City the modern-day equivalent of Henry Ford's Rouge factory. A factory of the future that people from all over the world will want to tour."