How do you design a $30,000 electric pickup? Inside Ford's skunkworks. - Ars Technica
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LONG BEACH, Calif.—2026 is a strange time for electric vehicles in the US. The current administration has no desire to push for their adoption and has rescinded the federal tax credit on which EV sales have depended for years. Tariffs have made vehicles and their constituent components even more expensive, making switching to an EV for the first time an even harder pill to swallow. Manufacturers like Honda, which had three nearly production-ready EVs on deck, just killed them all unceremoniously.
It’s bleak out there.
Still, Ford has decided to stay in the game with its “Universal Electric Vehicle,” which it announced in late 2025. This highly modular platform is designed to underpin all of the Blue Oval’s electric vehicles going forward. The work has been largely conducted at Ford’s Electric Vehicle Development Center (EVDC) in sunny Long Beach, California, and Ars Technica was recently invited to tour the facility to see what makes it different from any of Ford’s other operations.
The skunkworks
Inside a bland-looking tilt-up concrete building in a new-ish business park near the Long Beach Airport, Ford is attempting to upend the way it develops new vehicles. The EVDC was conceived of as a “skunkworks,” but what is that, and why is it important for Ford’s future?
The first skunkworks was a highly autonomous, secretive division within Lockheed Martin that began in Burbank, California, in the 1940s. It got its name from its proximity to a plastics plant that made the surrounding area stink; the smell was so bad that one of the engineers assigned to the division started referring to the building as the “Skonk Works,” after a fictional product from the “Lil’ Abner” comic strip. The name stuck, but it was changed from Skonk to Skunk to avoid any lawsuits.
The EVDC lobby is a little less anonymous.
Ford
The EVDC lobby is a little less anonymous.
Ford
The outside of the EVDC.
Ford
The outside of the EVDC.
Ford
The EVDC lobby is a little less anonymous.
Ford
The outside of the EVDC.
Ford
Lockheed’s Skunk Works (an official trademark) was headed by an aeronautical engineer named Clarence Leonard Johnson—better known as Kelly Johnson. Johnson is well known today as the father of the P-38 Lightning, the U2 spy plane, and even the SR-71 Blackbird (aka the coolest plane ever).
He’s probably best known outside plane geek circles for his list of 14 rules for running a skunkworks program. Let’s run through them to understand Ford’s goals with EVDC.
1. The Skunk Works manager must be delegated practically complete control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher.
Johnson’s first rule of running a skunkworks is arguably the most critical. The goal of a program like Ford’s EVDC is to reduce the red tape required to advance a project. This is especially important in a company like Ford, which has a deeply entrenched bureaucracy.
In EVDC’s case, this top-level manager is Alan Clarke, vice president of Advanced Development Projects. Before joining Ford in 2022, he worked in development at Tesla. This is a theme at EVDC, with many senior staff coming from Tesla. Clarke works hand in hand with Jolanta Coffey, the vehicle program director for the UEV program, who previously worked on the European Transit and USDM Expedition and Navigator.
2. Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and industry.
EVDC’s physical distance from both Dearborn and the EV office in Palo Alto, California, is designed to further ingrain that sense of autonomy from the big blue mothership. While the EVDC program works closely with both of those offices, day-to-day operations take place at the Long Beach location, which serves as a one-stop shop for vehicle development. EVDC spans just two buildings, with the fleet center occupying a large part of the second building.
3. The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10–25 percent compared to the so-called normal systems).
A small team is another of the core principles outlined by Johnson in his 14 rules, and it’s arguably the most quoted today. A small, agile team is an advantage in a skunkworks because, as with the first rule, it cuts through red tape. It allows you to move quickly and adapt to failures or changes without dealing with the organizational inertia inherent in a big team.
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