Ford’s upcoming midsize electric pickup truck will adopt a 48-volt electrical system and simplified wiring architecture that closely mirrors the approach Tesla pioneered in the Cybertruck. The decision, embedded in Ford’s new Universal EV Platform, signals that the Dearborn automaker sees Tesla’s electrical engineering choices not as experimental curiosities but as a proven blueprint for cutting costs and weight in next-generation EVs. With a target price of around $30,000 and a 2027 delivery window, the truck represents Ford’s most aggressive attempt yet to make electric pickups affordable for mainstream buyers.
Ford’s 48-Volt Shift Follows Tesla’s Lead
For decades, passenger vehicles have relied on 12-volt electrical systems, a standard that dates back to the mid-20th century. Tesla broke from that convention when it designed the Cybertruck around a 48-volt architecture, a change that reduces the current needed to deliver the same power and, as a result, allows thinner, lighter wiring throughout the vehicle. Tesla has stated that its 48-volt approach can cut low-voltage cabling to roughly a quarter of what traditional systems require, a claim laid out in its discussion of automotive connectivity. Ford is now making the same leap. The automaker has confirmed it is moving from a 12-volt system to a 48-volt system on its new platform, a direct parallel that carries real engineering consequences for cost, weight, and assembly complexity.
The practical payoff is measurable. Ford says the wiring harness on its new platform is 4,000 feet shorter and 22 pounds lighter than the harness in a first-generation Ford EV. Those numbers matter because wiring harnesses are among the most labor-intensive components to install in any vehicle. A shorter, lighter harness means faster assembly, fewer potential failure points, and a vehicle that carries less dead weight, all of which translate into savings that Ford can pass along to buyers or reinvest in battery capacity. In an EV market where battery packs remain the single most expensive component, even modest reductions in copper and labor can help close the gap between electric and combustion-powered trucks on sticker price.
Zonal Architecture and Connector Simplification
Beyond voltage, Ford is also restructuring how electrical functions are organized inside the vehicle. The company is adopting a zonal architecture that consolidates functions into a handful of regional modules, paired with higher-speed Ethernet for data transfer. This approach replaces the traditional model where each feature, from power windows to advanced driver-assist sensors, gets its own dedicated wiring run back to a central control unit. By grouping nearby functions into zones, Ford can drastically reduce the total number of wires and connectors needed. The shift is significant because conventional vehicles typically require hundreds of individual connections, each one representing potential cost, complexity, and a future failure point.
Tesla formalized its solution to that sprawl by introducing the Low-Voltage Connector Standard, or LVCS, which it says reduces connector types to just a small set of standardized interfaces. That standard builds directly on the Cybertruck’s 48-volt architecture, allowing the company to treat low-voltage power and data more like a modular electronics system than a bespoke wiring job for each model. Ford has not publicly adopted LVCS by name, but the direction is unmistakable: fewer connector types, zonal grouping, and higher-voltage wiring all point toward the same manufacturing philosophy. The convergence suggests that Tesla’s electrical design choices are becoming an informal industry template rather than a proprietary advantage. For Ford, the benefit is not just technical elegance but a faster, more repeatable assembly process that supports high-volume production at lower per-unit cost.
A $30,000 Truck Built in Kentucky
Ford’s first vehicle on the Universal EV Platform will be a midsize four-door electric pickup targeted around $30,000 and scheduled to reach customers in 2027. That price point would undercut the current Cybertruck and most other electric trucks on the market by a wide margin, placing Ford’s offering closer to the territory of gas-powered midsize pickups like the Ranger or the Chevrolet Colorado. Achieving that price depends heavily on the manufacturing efficiencies baked into the platform’s electrical design, which is precisely why the 48-volt and zonal architecture choices carry strategic weight far beyond their engineering merits. If Ford can reliably build a truck with mainstream capability and range at that price, it would pressure competitors to rethink their own cost structures and could accelerate the broader shift away from combustion engines in the work-truck segment.
The truck will be built at Ford’s Louisville Assembly Plant, which is undergoing a major conversion backed by a $2 billion investment to retool the facility for electric vehicle production. Ford has described its total commitment to the platform and related manufacturing as a $5 billion investment. The Louisville retooling is not a minor refresh; it represents a full-scale transformation of an existing plant to support a fundamentally different type of vehicle architecture. That includes new tooling for battery pack assembly, revised body-in-white processes to accommodate underfloor packs and integrated wiring channels, and updated quality-control procedures tailored to high-voltage systems. The scale of that bet reflects Ford’s confidence that simplified electrical systems can deliver cost savings large enough to make a $30,000 electric truck viable without sacrificing capability or range, while also leveraging an existing workforce and supply base rather than building entirely greenfield factories.
Why Copying Tesla Is Not the Same as Catching Up
The framing of Ford “copying” Tesla deserves some scrutiny. The 48-volt architecture and connector simplification that Tesla introduced with the Cybertruck are not patented secrets. They are engineering responses to a well-known problem: modern vehicles carry too much copper, too many connector types, and too much wiring complexity, all of which inflate costs and slow down assembly. Tesla recognized this earlier than most and built the Cybertruck accordingly, then codified its approach in the LVCS documentation it has shared with the industry. Ford arriving at similar conclusions does not necessarily indicate imitation so much as convergence on an obvious solution once the constraints of electric vehicle manufacturing become clear. In that sense, Tesla’s real advantage has been time, years of head start in validating a radically simplified low-voltage system in customer hands.
That said, execution timelines matter. Tesla has been shipping vehicles with 48-volt systems since the Cybertruck entered production, meaning the company has real-world data on durability, service costs, and failure modes that Ford does not yet possess. Ford’s use of higher-speed Ethernet for data transfer adds another layer of complexity that will need validation in production vehicles, from electromagnetic interference with sensors to long-term connector reliability in harsh environments. While the engineering logic is sound, translating a simplified wiring architecture from design documents into a reliable, mass-produced truck at a $30,000 price point is a different challenge entirely. The gap between announcing a platform and delivering tens of thousands of trucks on schedule has tripped up Ford before, most notably during the early ramp of the F-150 Lightning, when supply-chain snags and production pauses undercut ambitious volume targets. Copying Tesla’s ideas on paper is relatively easy; matching its pace of iteration and its ability to debug new architectures in the field will determine whether Ford’s Universal EV Platform becomes a true competitive equalizer or just another well-intentioned redesign that struggles to scale.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
