Future EVs from GM and Ford Travel Parallel Paths

“GM is committed to EVs for the long term. One in four cars sold around the world is an EV, and that number is only rising. We’re not walking away from that; we’re embracing it. When the U.S. market is ready for EVs in large numbers, we’ll be there.”

That’s GM president Mark Reuss, reaffirming his company’s commitment to creating and selling electric vehicles “built for mainstream adoption” in volume. His remarks came Wednesday at GM Forward, a sprawling press event in New York City in which the company laid out its future technology road map.

New Cells, Mainstream Models

GM’s new Gen 4 EV architecture will underpin what Reuss called “a remarkable set of vehicles, in several segments.” He declined to specify dates, prices, ranges, or models, though he and other execs underscored that multiple EVs will come in “mainstream” segments. That includes small and medium crossover utility vehicles, the heart of today’s U.S. car market.

The Gen 4 EVs will ride on a new “skateboard” architecture, powered by LMR (Lithium Manganese Rich) batteries to be built in volume starting in 2028 at the Ultium Cells plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee. GM claims its LMR cells have energy density close to today’s nickel-manganese-cobalt-aluminum (NMCA) cells, at costs that approach much cheaper lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cells. They will first go into the current full-size EV trucks from Chevrolet and GMC.

Chevrolet

2026 Chevrolet Silverado EV Trail Boss.

While the Gen 4 EV architecture accepts multiple cell chemistries, Zach Walker, GM’s director of global EV architecture, told Car and Driver the new chemistry is proving to have more high-end capability than projected. So GM might not have to use NMCA cells for its most demanding EV applications—though he stressed that decision hasn’t been made yet.

Walker put numbers to the improvements. EVs on the Gen 4 platform will be roughly 15 percent lighter than comparable models today, with drag coefficients 25 percent lower. They will have new drive units with 40 percent fewer parts in the motor that are 20 percent more efficient than today’s units. That adds up to range that requires roughly 20 percent less battery capacity.

Illustration by Avarvarii|Car and Driver

2028 Ford Fathom.

Similar Themes from Ford

For its upcoming electric mid-size 2027 Fathom pickup truck and other EVs to follow, Ford also has created new, dedicated architecture. Called the Universal EV (UEV) platform, it will ultimately spawn up to five additional vehicles—some of which it teased, under covers, during a media tour of its Southern California development center in May.

Overall, both GM and Ford are adopting many of the technologies already launched by EV startups like Tesla and Rivian. They include:

• Software Defined Vehicle (SDV) electric architecture: Replacing today’s dozens of distributed processors from multiple vendors with a single central computing unit, SDVs control all vehicle functions in software. The code can easily be updated over the air to add features, improve performance, and address recalls.
• Centralized compute infrastructure: GM’s SDVs will run on a single high-performance central processing unit 40 times more powerful than today’s equivalents. The new electrical architecture will be used not just in EVs but across its future high-volume gas vehicles too.
• Bidirectional vehicle-to-home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid energy flow: The ability to use EVs to power electric tools and appliances or as home energy storage has proved surprisingly appealing to car shoppers—because gasoline vehicles can’t offer it. Future EVs from both companies will have full bidirectional charging built in.

Still, the two companies’ EV approaches differ in important ways.

BATTERIES: GM will use the new LMR cell chemistry it developed in its battery R&D labs. The company has invested $900 million in two facilities at its Warren Tech Center that let its engineers take potential new cells from the labs, prototype them in small batches, then test the resulting designs at low volumes on actual cell production equipment.

Ford, by contrast, will build low-cost LFP cells for vehicles on the UEV platform at a new plant in Marshall, Michigan. But it didn’t create the chemistry; it licensed the intellectual property for the cells from CATL, China’s largest cell manufacturer.

PICKUP TRUCKS: To launch its new EVs, Ford’s first model sits squarely in what may be its strongest segment: pickup trucks. The 2028 Fathom will be its fourth pickup model, after the full-size F-series, mid-size Ranger, and very successful compact Maverick.

GM has no compact pickup today, and its EV pickups are at the high end of the market. They’re full-size trucks that weigh more than four tons, with huge battery packs rated at 300-plus miles of range. Walker, the director of global EV architecture, hedged when asked whether the Gen 4 EV platform could support all vehicle sizes. Still, he suggested elliptically that it would be “crazy difficult” to create a single platform to underpin everything from high-volume mainstream small SUVs to full-size trucks.

VEHICLE ASSEMBLY: Ford’s new UEV platform has been designed for a new, far more streamlined assembly process. The company gutted and rebuilt its plant in Louisville, Kentucky, to accommodate three parallel assembly streams rather than a single continuous line. There, a rolling platform containing the battery and powertrain, a front end, and a rear are created simultaneously and mated at the end of the process. Ford says it’s faster, involves far fewer steps and processes, and costs less.

GM said little about manufacturing in its tech session. Pressed on that aspect, Walker said that “ironically” the SDV architecture is the biggest driver of changes to assembly of future vehicles. The need to get all the electrical units and the central compute engine into the vehicle as early as possible in the process, to enable systems to be tested during the assembly process, requires changes to the build sequence. But it doesn’t appear GM is re-creating mass production from scratch as Ford is.

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John Voelcker edited Green Car Reports for nine years, publishing more than 12,000 articles on hybrids, electric cars, and other low- and zero-emission vehicles and the energy ecosystem around them. He now covers advanced auto technologies and energy policy as a reporter and analyst. His work has appeared in print, online, and radio outlets that include Wired, Popular Science, Tech Review, IEEE Spectrum, and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” He splits his time between the Catskill Mountains and New York City and still has hopes of one day becoming an international man of mystery.

Source: www.caranddriver.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.