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Aug. 16, 2025 | Weekend Drive: Ford’s latest ‘Model T moment;’ SDVs gain momentum
Aug. 16, 2025 | Weekend Drive: Ford’s latest ‘Model T moment;’ SDVs gain momentum
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About this episode
The discussion centers on Ford's ambitious plan to launch a $30,000 mid-sized electric pickup by 2027 using a revolutionary assembly method that could cut production time by 40%. The hosts debate the challenges of EV adoption, focusing on price and charging infrastructure concerns, and suggest marketing EVs as second cars. They also explore the evolving landscape of software-defined vehicles (SDVs), highlighting automakers' shift towards open-source collaboration after costly in-house software efforts. The episode contrasts the U.S. and China’s approaches to vehicle software innovation, emphasizing China's faster pace and tech-savvy consumers.
Topics:
ford electric pickup
ev adoption challenges
charging infrastructure
software-defined vehicles
automaker software strategies
open source software
china automotive tech
vehicle assembly innovation
ev pricing
automotive industry trends
Automotive News staff reporters Larry P. Vellequette and Molly Boigon join the show to talk about whether Ford can reinvent vehicle assembly in its bid to compete with China. They also discuss the trajectory of software-defined vehicles and growing collaboration around the technology.
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Welcome to this Weekend Drive edition of Daily Drive.
For the third week in August 2025, I'm Callan Walker in Las Vegas.
We're breaking down some of the biggest stories in the auto industry from the past
week and looking forward to what's in store in the days ahead.
Today on the show, I'm joined by two of my automotive news colleagues, Larry Velquette, covers Toyota
and Subaru.
Larry, welcome to Weekend Drive.
It is great to be here, Cal.
And Molly Boygon covers technology and innovation for us at Automotive News.
Molly, welcome back to Weekend Drive.
Thanks for having me, Cal.
All right, guys.
We got a lot of news.
Talk about it.
Are we ready?
Let's go.
Yes.
I'm very happy that both of you are here.
Two of my favorite people like outside of work.
So this should be a very good episode, so everyone should enjoy this.
All right.
So Ford says it plans to start selling a mid-sized electric pickup for about $30,000 in 2027
that can be built up to 40% faster than vehicles today.
Now, guys, will this be a show-improved moment for the company?
And how much is on the line for CEO Jim Farley?
This is an all-in bet, Cal, for a number of reasons.
It's an all-in bet because Ford has been losing money on its EVs.
It's an all-in bet because it's a radical change to the way that Ford has traditionally
built vehicles.
And it's an all-in bet because we really don't know that EVs, if EVs are going to
have a future in the US, given the current administration and its attitudes toward electric
vehicles.
So Farley is putting it all on the line here.
And hey, they get credit for being bold and they get credit for focusing on costs because
one of the things that has held back EV penetration rates since these things started is that they
were not competitive with ICE vehicles and with hybrids.
So it's a big risk.
It's rolled at ICE.
But who knows?
Maybe they'll hit.
Well, Larry, I also want to ask you, since you've seen that automated assembly line in
Kentucky, how do you compare this to what Ford's doing to what Toyota is doing down in Kentucky?
They're both focusing on driving down costs, right?
But they're doing it in different ways.
Toyota is taking a much more standard view, even though it's still innovative, right?
But it's still a traditional assembly method.
What Ford is doing is kind of what Tesla wants to do, what Tesla said it was going to do if
it could ever deliver anything on time.
So what they're doing is it's called an unboxed assembly method.
Right.
Basically, they're going to build the battery, they're going to put the seats on top of it,
then they're going to build the front end of the car, the vehicle, pardon me, then
they're going to build the back end of the car, they're going to marry those
together, and then they're going to put a body on the top of it.
So it's a radically different way to build a car, instead of just 150 different stops along
an assembly line where workers bolt something on or off, a lot of it goes together automatically
or gets assembled in big sub-assemblies and then gets tacked together and thrown out
the door.
They say they can do it 40% faster, which is a crazy number, and if they're able
to pull it off, and if that means that those EVs can be profitable, presumably, right at
the get-go, that would be world changing.
Yeah, Larry, I caught that straight to you threw at Tesla, by the way.
That wasn't going to go unspoken.
Okay, Molly, I want to ask you, EV registrations rose in June, but U.S. market share dropped
to 8.6%.
Is the biggest concern for EV adoption price or charging infrastructure?
What do you think concerns consumers the most?
My understanding is that the major concern is price, because different outlets like JD Power
and others that have been assessing consumer attitudes toward electric vehicles have noted
some improvements in the accessibility, availability, reliability of charging infrastructure, but
as far as price goes, the differential is still pretty significant, and while those different
industry stakeholders have tracked improvements in terms of charging infrastructure, it still
remains a pretty commonly cited concern, so maybe a little bit of both.
Interesting.
You know what, Kel, can I jump in here for just a minute?
Yeah, go ahead, Larry.
Yeah.
You're an EV owner.
I am.
I'm a hybrid owner.
It's always struck me, been around, watched this rise.
The first Tesla Roadster that they showed at the Detroit Auto Show, and it took them
three days to get to Detroit because of the charging infrastructure from LA.
That was like 15 years ago now.
But it's always struck me that what's interesting is in the marketing of EVs, right?
Automakers have traditionally tried to market EVs to consumers to get adoption as a straight
substitute.
You can buy this, and your life won't change that much because of the charging infrastructure
and the price.
That's not really the case, right?
Right.
I mean, you can buy a very, very nice luxury vehicle for the cost of some of these pretty
basic EVs, let alone have to struggle with the charging infrastructure.
It's always struck me that if automakers simply suggested instead, you know what?
We're not yet at a point where it's a straight, for many people, where it's a straight substitute.
It's not.
I mean, it's just too complex yet.
There's not enough infrastructure yet.
The technology still do.
It's the bag phone where we're at.
But people do want to help.
They do want to help the environment.
If they marketed EVs as, hey, if you and your family have a second car, make your
second car an EV because you could keep the range.
You still got one vehicle.
If you need that four or 500 miles or you're taking that long trip, take it by all means.
But for the 95% of the time that you're just driving around town or driving within 200
miles, this will work and you will love it and it'll be cheaper.
I've always thought that was a much better message to try and convince consumers to
dip their toe in.
Molly, can you answer this for me?
Why do you think that, like Larry said, that automakers have this almost all in mentality
of like, it has to be one or the other, right?
Because it's like, we know this.
We reported on this for years.
It was companies saying, we're going to go all EV by 2030 and we're going to completely
redo our line of vehicles and no gas-powered vehicles anymore and it's like, why can't
there be just this like middle ground of like, okay, the infrastructure isn't built yet.
So like Larry said, you get the EV as the second car.
You still have the gas car to get the range and have the, I guess, security of I don't
have to worry about, you know, running out of battery or not having a place to charge
my car because I have this other option.
But why do you think automakers have that mentality?
I think that I don't really have to remind this particular group of people, but I just
don't think that the fear that Tesla struck into the hearts of the traditional automaker
can really be understated.
I think that in like 2020, 2021, the traditional automakers were looking around at Tesla's
growing market share and saying, okay, they're going in on EVs.
We're going to go in on EVs.
And then also I think that EVs continue to suffer from a very particular reputational
problem as like a wealthy person's toy that's not actually a vehicle of utility.
My sense is, and it's really just kind of anecdotal, is that automakers don't want to
perpetuate that narrative by suggesting that the only people who really have a use for
an electric vehicle are people who can afford a second vehicle.
Good stuff, guys.
Well, that's the first part of our show.
I can't wait for the second part.
Let's keep it rolling.
Coming up this week at Automotive News, we ran a series of reports about the future of
software-defined vehicles.
We'll talk about that next on Weekend Drive.
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Welcome back to Weekend Drive.
I'm Kellyn Walker with Automotive News staff reporters Larry Velquette and Molly Boygaard.
So Molly, you wrote three stories this week for us at Automotive News about the status
of software-defined vehicles.
Talk about this project and why you wanted to look into SDVs now.
Yes.
So our tech and innovation team wrote a series of stories about software-defined vehicles,
which sort of have a very nebulous definition, but the one that I feel is most accurate
is sort of vehicle philosophy that allows the vehicle to receive new features and
capabilities via over-the-air updates, which requires that the underlying hardware
is sufficiently flexible to enable these new features.
And another thing is the experts saw me that a truly software-defined vehicle will have
an open developer ecosystem where you will be able to pull capabilities and functionalities
not just from one automaker, one tech company, but from developers at different companies
all around the world with different sort of intents behind their new functionalities.
So we wanted to sort of update readers on where the industry is on the SDVs, what some
of the sort of speed bumps and opportunities are for automakers, and where the industry
is sort of going from here.
So one of the stories you wrote, Molly, was about automakers cutting back on software
initiatives and embracing open source development.
Now I'm not going to sit here and say I told you so, but like our old executive
editor, he will tell you this, and our producer Jake will tell you this, and I have said
this since I've started working here.
Why has there been such a, it's almost like a headache for me, of automakers not working
with software companies and being more open when it comes to the technology side and
putting into these vehicles.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
Can I take this?
Can I take this?
Okay.
So my question is, why did this take so long?
You want to give it a shot?
Yeah.
No, no.
I want Molly to answer this, and then I'm going to come back.
I think we're probably going in the same direction.
And it's actually something that I alluded to a little bit earlier in the conversation.
Who could look at the vertically integrated supply chain and software stack of Tesla
and not decide as an automaker development person planner that you would want to attempt
to achieve the same level of vertical integration, which has been such a strength for the startups.
So the difference, however, is that the legacy automakers have all of this sort of supply
chain and hardware and software baggage that they would have to basically wipe clean
and start with an intention of designing a vehicle to be really enabled by software
rather than mechanics.
And so that's basically a lot of the automakers attempted to sort of do everything.
There was, as you said, Kell, a sort of late recognition that perhaps this wasn't the
best strategy, a lot of duplication of efforts, a lot of wasted money, especially in a moment
where finances are increasingly tight.
And so there's, as you said, a movement toward more collaboration, more reliance on open source
software, which is appears on its face like a step back, the automakers are doing less.
But all of the experts that I spoke to told me that this actually indicates a step forward.
Okay, now can I go?
So let me give you a little history.
I covered Volkswagen.
I was a Volkswagen reporter when the whole Cariad disaster rolled out.
Cariad was Volkswagen's effort to build new software in-house.
It was going to be very grand, you know.
But let me tell you something first about Volkswagen, you have to understand.
Volkswagen is not an automaker, first and foremost.
Volkswagen is an employment scheme that happens to make cars.
Okay.
They have more employees worldwide than four GM and Stellantis combined, right?
And they make fewer cars than Toyota.
Wow, Larry's pulling no punches today.
Larry, how did you make a comment like that?
You have to say respectfully, okay?
Okay.
You can add this in, respectfully.
All right, we're good.
But when this happened, Herbert Dees launched this.
And the initial reason for it was they thought, well, we don't want to give access to other
companies, right?
Because we need to capture that money because we're going to lose our shirts on EVs, right?
So we need those additional revenue streams.
And this gets into subscriptions.
You know, we're going to put all these extra features in, but you can only turn them on
temporarily if you give us extra money.
But we're going to put them in your car.
You just, that you're going to own, you're just not going to be able to turn them on.
That's insane.
Microtransactions.
Yes.
Yeah.
Right?
This was their way forward.
It's how they were going to pay for electrification.
What they learned is that while it takes them 200 people and a committee of 200 people
in nine months to decide whether or not to color in an R on the R-line Gulf, which is true,
they did not have sufficient expertise to be able to pull off software.
They stunk at it.
They had too many committees.
And this is true of any automaker, right?
But let's remember, you ask why these automakers didn't rush in to follow Tesla.
Those are a highly, highly regulated product, insanely regulated product.
And they kill people.
Let's remember that.
It's not a phone.
Phones rarely kill people, right?
These products do.
And opening them up to software from outside is extremely dangerous.
Well, I just want to chime in here because this actually, this is another one of the
folk eye of the pieces.
So the piece set out to answer this question.
Do more points of connectivity open the vehicle up to more attack vectors and therefore make
the vehicle less secure?
And it also touched on the open source software issue, which I'll get to in a second.
So it's a complicated answer because while it's true that more points of connectivity
create more attack vectors, availability of over-the-air updates ensures that companies
can patch security issues more quickly.
So a famous example, which I'm sure all of you remember this 2015 White Hat hacking incident
of a Jeep Cherokee was actually a connected vehicle that was not software enabled.
Like it had a cellular connection, but it was not what we think of as a software-defined
vehicle.
So a software-defined vehicle that could receive a patch would actually be more secure
in that situation than a connected vehicle that's not software enabled.
And then in terms of the open source software development issue, so it's not that all of
the software on the vehicle still has to meet functional safety standards.
It just ensures that automakers are not duplicating efforts on layers of the stack that are non-differentiating.
So like the consumer doesn't really see anything besides it application.
You're looking at the like the infotainment center.
You're looking at the instrument cluster.
You're looking at the addition of a new feature via OTA.
That's the type of thing that actually differentiates.
There's no reason that each individual automaker should be inventing their own proprietary middleware.
So why doesn't everyone just rely on an open source software development kit, which has
the source code that's publicly available that people can build on, and then therefore
the application layer can be built upon a sort of standard middle layer.
That's the thinking behind the open source movement.
It's not really the direction that the automakers are heading in to allow like
me to write a program that would be able to run on your software defined vehicle.
Well, why do countries like China have the edge when it comes to software defined technology?
And it's part of this just because most of them are all vertically integrated?
This would maybe, I mean it's hard, I love all my children, but this may have been
my favorite piece of the of the three that I wrote.
Because I feel like this is something that we talk about all the time on staff and
is just such a sort of present current of thought in the industry that China has the
software edge, and there's a bunch of really interesting reasons for this.
One is that consumer electronics manufacturing is based in China.
So as Larry was saying, while vehicles are not consumer electronics,
having all of those companies, having all of that supply chain,
having all of those raw materials readily available makes it a lot easier to sort of
build that software enabled vehicle.
Then you also have a different sort of culture and focus.
Larry was talking about the intense, intensely regulated nature of the American auto industry,
up until recently, the focus in China, you know, China obviously has its own vehicle
regulations, but just a lot of many fewer barriers to entry in terms of in terms
of putting out software updates and patches.
And actually now the Chinese government is approving OTA updates that go out that are
related to functional safety.
So that's like an adjustment that's happened over the last year or so.
And then also you have, again, just a younger industry that was able to sort of start with
a cleaner slate and is not sort of beholden to these kind of legacy relationships and legacy
ways of thinking.
So it's a bunch of different factors, but those are some of them.
I wish you, Kelly, you and Molly could have gone with us to Kerasoft when we visited,
because you would have both been blown away.
Yeah.
Yeah, you would have seen this.
Kerasoft, for our listeners, is a tear down operation that's global, happens to be also
have a location in Metro Detroit, which we visited earlier this spring.
And the staff to a person was just mesmerized by, A, they had a bunch of Chinese vehicles
there and we don't get a lot of chance in the States to see them, obviously.
But we were mesmerized by the speed and the quality that they showed.
And the reason that they told us, they have a large presence in China as well.
One of the head guys at Kerasoft talked about going to a, he was asked to speak at a conference
there in Shanghai on a Saturday morning at 7 a.m., right?
And he's like, okay, well, who's going to be there?
There were 900 people there.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, to listen to him, because he said these guys, they work six days a week.
They work 12 hours a day at least.
He's like, yeah, the reason they're fast is it's the same amount of work.
They're just doing it at an accelerated pace because they're working so much harder.
And also the Chinese consumer, obviously a huge generalization, but
is just much different than the American consumer.
I spoke to analysts who were saying American consumers are much more blindly brand loyal.
People are XYZ automaker families for life, regardless of any of the technological
innovations of the vehicle, certainly.
I mean, sometimes people will switch based on the specs of the vehicle.
But in China, there's just not that same legacy cultural attachment to individual brands.
And consumers also care, frankly, much more about technology.
You still have people in the U.S. who are really not interested
in a touchscreen infotainment center.
And that's just not the situation in China.
You know, it's a much more sort of tech-savvy, adoptive pool of consumers.
I should also mention that there are other great pieces of the series
by Pete Bigelow and Lois Jones, so people can check out the full series.
All right.
Well, Larry Valquette and Molly Boygon are staff reporters for us at Automotive News.
We have to do this again.
Thank you so much, both of you, for joining me.
Thanks for having us.
That's all for this weekend drive edition of Daily Drive.
I'm Kellan Walker.
Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Neer for his help on today's podcast.
You can get the latest news on tech and innovation,
manufacturing, and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com.
Come back on Monday for a conversation with Harry Campbell.
Also known as The Ride Share Guy about the breakneck pace of development in the RoboTaxi space.
Waymo is doing 250,000 trips a week, and that sounds like a ton,
but Uber is doing 30 million trips a day around the globe,
maybe 10 million in the United States.
So they're really still operating on kind of different levels.
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