Ford could bring F1-inspired ‘skunkworks’ EVs to Europe
“It turns out that finding people who love motorsport who want to ‘build a buffet in Vegas’ – a $30,000 EV that’s nice-looking and fun to drive – is hard,” he said.
“A lot of people want to stay in F1 and the challenge is picking people from motorsport who can actually design a breakthrough product. But when people see what we did with this skunkworks, they will say: ‘Wow, that’s cooler engineering than a hypercar. They will be shocked.”
Farley said the extreme aerodynamic focus of modern F1 cars was a key attraction in recruiting people for the skunkworks.
Ford claims the forthcoming pick-up-tipped to revive the Ranchero name – is 15% more aerodynamically efficient than any pick-up currently on sale in the US.
“Every bit of aero we can improve will help us reduce the size of the battery, and F1 has the best aero people in the world,” he said.
“I can’t steal [F1 design guru] Adrian Newey. I asked Adrian (when he was at Red Bull to look at the Cd of some of our EVs, and he said he didn’t care about homologation rules. But we needed those skills to come over. It’s the same with recruiting people for EV powertrain efficiency.”
Farley said the intense focus on aerodynamics and powertrain efficiency would enable the skunkworks EVs to be fitted with smaller batteries, in turn keeping weight down and improving packaging options.
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