Ford prices Fathom electric pickup at $28,350

Ford Motor plans to sell a midsize electric pickup called the Fathom starting at $28,350, its first vehicle built on a new platform the automaker says is meant to make its electric cars profitable.

Ford disclosed the name and price on Thursday but did not show the truck, saying it would reveal the design early in 2027. Adding $1,595 for destination and delivery brings the sticker to $29,945, just under the $30,000 mark the company had targeted since it began speaking openly about the project in 2025. Preorders open early in 2027, and customer deliveries are expected in the fall.

What Ford is selling

The five-passenger Fathom will have more passenger volume than a Toyota RAV4, Ford said, a figure that leaves out the bed and a front trunk. It is a midsize truck, a class above Ford's gasoline Maverick, with a bed and frunk for cargo.

Ford has not released battery specifications, and it has not confirmed a range. The truck is expected to travel at least 300 miles on a charge, given the company's focus on aerodynamics and efficiency.

Every Fathom will launch with BlueCruise, Ford's hands-free highway driving assistant, and the platform is designed to add an eyes-off-the-road system in 2028. Bidirectional power, a large touchscreen with Apple Maps, a digital key, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are standard, though not the newer CarPlay Ultra.

The Fathom will include a built-in NACS port, giving it access to Tesla's Supercharger network. Two disguised prototypes were photographed charging at a Tesla station last month, before Thursday's announcement.

Ford said it chose the name for its meaning, describing a truck that required reaching a new depth of innovation to fathom possibilities once thought beyond reach. The company is presenting it as high-tech and fun to drive despite the low price.

How Ford cut the cost

Ford announced the Universal Electric Vehicle platform, known as UEV, in August 2025 and developed it at a secret unit, or skunkworks, in Long Beach, California, far from its Michigan headquarters. The team was led by Alan Clarke, a longtime former Tesla engineer, and its work has been closely held.

The Fathom is the first vehicle to use what Ford calls its assembly tree, a process at the Louisville Assembly Plant that builds three sub-assemblies, the front, center and rear, and joins them rather than sending a vehicle down a single line. Ford said the approach cuts the number of parts by 20 percent and eliminates 40 percent of the process workstations used in current production.

To lower costs further, Ford turned to prismatic lithium iron phosphate batteries, a cheaper and more thermally stable chemistry sourced from its BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall, Michigan. The company is also using megacasting to simplify production, and it describes the Louisville plant as its most automated, an investment it says secures 2,200 hourly jobs.

Ford's goal for the platform is that every vehicle built on it turn a profit within a year of launch and match the cost of electric vehicles from Tesla and Chinese manufacturers.

The architecture is meant to underpin several future models, spreading development costs across them. The Model e division posted a full-year operating loss of $4.8 billion in 2025, and Ford took a $19.5 billion writedown tied to canceled electric projects that year. The company is targeting breakeven for the division by 2029.

Designed for a different buyer

Kay Hart, general manager of the Model e division, said the Fathom was designed around a buyer whose motivations differ from those of a traditional truck customer, and that defining that owner shaped every decision. She framed the low price as spending where buyers notice and cutting where they do not.

We've created value for the customer by reducing cost in all the places customers don't care about so that we can put it in places that they do care about.

For a while, the Fathom and the Slate Truck will be the only electric pickups that are not full-size, and both still face the task of persuading gasoline-truck owners to switch. Convincing buyers of compact crossovers and SUVs to move to a pickup and to electric power at the same time is a harder sell still.

Ford, a 123-year-old company, has sold trucks for more than a century, and the F-Series has been the country's best-selling truck for 49 years. It found a similar formula in the small, low-cost Maverick. One industry analyst said Ford has earned its truck credibility and expects the Fathom to be a compelling equation.

A thin EV lineup

Ford discontinued the F-150 Lightning in December 2025 after seeing no path to profit on the large truck, leaving the Mustang Mach-E as its only passenger electric vehicle in the United States.

Chasing Tesla and Chinese rivals

Chief Executive Jim Farley is trying to close the gap with Tesla and compete with lower-cost electric vehicles from China, and he is doing it as EV sales cool and federal tax credits for electric cars disappear. Buyers have remained wary of range, cost, charging speed and reliability, and demand has fallen short of forecasts.

Ford's own Mustang Mach-E was down 50 percent in the United States through July.

Where the Fathom lands

At launch, General Motors will have no direct competitor in the affordable midsize segment; its Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV are full-size trucks that cost far more. The clearest rival is the Slate Truck, a customizable single-cab pickup that starts at $26,400 with destination and takes a stripped-down approach the Fathom does not. Beyond those, the Fathom faces only a few non-truck electric vehicles such as the Chevrolet Bolt.

Ford will reach the market about a year after Slate, entering a segment that is, for now, nearly empty.

The Fathom is Ford's second all-electric truck after the Lightning, or its third if you count a limited-run Ranger EV from the late 1990s. It arrives as the automaker's central volume bet to rebuild an electric lineup it pared back sharply over the past year.

Much about the truck remains unknown. Ford has not shown its exterior, has not published battery details or a confirmed range, and has not said how many it plans to build. A spokesperson said the company has the best chance to make the platform work.

What comes next

Ford will show the Fathom and begin taking preorders early in 2027, with customer deliveries following in the fall. Beyond the truck, the company is counting on the same platform to carry future models and to turn a division that has lost billions of dollars into one that pays for itself by the end of the decade.