Ford Says Its New EV Motors Are 30% More Efficient Than BYD’s

Ford’s $28,350 Fathom electric pickup, the first model on its new Universal Electric Vehicle platform, will use motors, gearboxes and inverters that CEO Jim Farley says are about 30% more efficient than BYD’s.

Farley says that efficiency lets Ford fit a smaller battery, reducing the single biggest cost in building an electric vehicle.

Ford targets battery costs with more efficient UEV powertrain

Farley made the comparison during Ford’s third-quarter earnings call, describing the powertrain’s efficiency as one of the keys to keeping costs down on the UEV platform.

“There’s another area that we really found to be quite advantaged relative to a BYD. And that is the efficiency of our motors, gearbox and inverters, which are about 30% more efficient than theirs and allows us to design a battery that’s much less,” Farley said. “I think that’s really critical,” he added, according to InsideEVs.

Ford pitches the UEV architecture, with fewer parts, better efficiency and an overhauled manufacturing process, as a way to build EVs that are far more economically viable than the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning.

Ford has not disclosed the Fathom’s exact battery capacity, although past reports have estimated it at between 50 and 60 kWh. To deliver a workable range of more than 200 miles from a pack that size, the pickup will need every efficiency gain Ford can find. Farley also did not specify which BYD powertrain he was measuring Ford’s against.

Ford is applying lessons from Chinese automakers beyond BYD

BYD is a natural benchmark for Ford. China’s biggest automaker surpassed Ford in global sales last year, with deep vertical integration behind much of its success, and Ford is bringing more of its own supply chain in-house while developing the UEV architecture from the ground up.

Ford is studying other Chinese automakers too. On the same call, executives said its European partnership with Geely is teaching the company how to cut vehicle costs and bring products to market faster.

Those efficiency gains won’t stay limited to EVs. Chief Operating Officer Kumar Galhotra said Ford’s hybrids will benefit from the same UEV engineering work.

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