How do you design a $30,000 electric pickup? Inside Ford’s skunkworks.

如何设计一款 3 万美元的电动皮卡？走进福特的“臭鼬工厂”。

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 The current administration has no desire to push for their adoption and has rescinded the federal tax credit on which EV sales have depended for years.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.

加利福尼亚州长滩——2026 年对于美国的电动汽车而言是一个奇怪的时期。现任政府无意推动电动汽车的普及，并取消了多年来支撑电动汽车销量的联邦税收抵免。关税使得车辆及其零部件变得更加昂贵，这让首次转向电动汽车变得更加难以接受。像本田这样原本有三款接近量产的电动汽车准备上市的制造商，也毫不客气地将它们全部砍掉了。前景十分黯淡。

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.

尽管如此，福特还是决定通过其在 2025 年底宣布的“通用电动汽车”（Universal Electric Vehicle）平台继续留在赛道上。这个高度模块化的平台旨在支撑福特未来所有的电动汽车。这项工作主要在位于加州阳光明媚的长滩的福特电动汽车开发中心（EVDC）进行，Ars Technica 最近受邀参观了该设施，以了解它与福特其他业务部门有何不同。

The skunkworks

“臭鼬工厂”

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?

在长滩机场附近一个较新的商业园区内，一座外观平平无奇的倾斜式混凝土建筑里，福特正试图颠覆其开发新车的方式。EVDC 被构想为一个“臭鼬工厂”（skunkworks），但那是什么？它对福特的未来为何如此重要？

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.

第一个“臭鼬工厂”是洛克希德·马丁公司内部一个高度自主、保密的部门，始于 20 世纪 40 年代的加州伯班克。它的名字来源于附近一家塑料厂，那家工厂让周边地区臭气熏天；气味实在太难闻了，以至于该部门的一名工程师开始将这座建筑称为“Skonk Works”，取自《小阿布纳》（Lil’ Abner）连环画中的一种虚构产品。这个名字流传了下来，但为了避免诉讼，从“Skonk”改为了“Skunk”。

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.

洛克希德的“臭鼬工厂”（官方注册商标）由一位名叫克拉伦斯·伦纳德·约翰逊（Clarence Leonard Johnson）的航空工程师领导，他更广为人知的名字是凯利·约翰逊（Kelly Johnson）。约翰逊如今被公认为 P-38“闪电”战斗机、U2 间谍飞机，甚至是 SR-71“黑鸟”（史上最酷的飞机）之父。在航空极客圈之外，他最出名的可能是他为运营“臭鼬工厂”项目制定的 14 条准则。让我们逐一了解这些准则，以理解福特在 EVDC 上的目标。

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. 1. “臭鼬工厂”经理必须被授予对其项目各方面的几乎完全控制权。他应直接向部门总裁或更高级别的人员汇报。

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.

约翰逊运营“臭鼬工厂”的第一条准则可以说是最关键的。像福特 EVDC 这样的项目，其目标是减少推进项目所需的繁文缛节。这对于像福特这样拥有根深蒂固官僚体系的公司尤为重要。在 EVDC 的案例中，这位高层经理是高级开发项目副总裁艾伦·克拉克（Alan Clarke）。在 2022 年加入福特之前，他在特斯拉从事开发工作。这是 EVDC 的一个主题，许多高级员工都来自特斯拉。克拉克与 UEV 项目的车辆项目总监乔兰塔·科菲（Jolanta Coffey）紧密合作，后者此前曾参与欧洲版全顺（Transit）以及美版远征者（Expedition）和领航员（Navigator）的开发。

2. Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and industry. 2. 军方和工业界都必须提供强大但精简的项目办公室。

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.

EVDC 在地理位置上与迪尔伯恩（福特总部）以及加州帕洛阿尔托的电动汽车办公室保持距离，旨在进一步强化其脱离福特母公司的自主感。虽然 EVDC 项目与这两个办公室密切合作，但日常运营都在长滩进行，这里是车辆开发的一站式中心。EVDC 仅占地两栋建筑，车队中心占据了第二栋建筑的大部分空间。

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). 3. 与项目有任何关联的人数必须受到近乎严苛的限制。使用少量精英人员（仅为所谓常规系统的 10% 到 25%）。

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. To that end, the Ford EVDC currently has around 350 people working at Long Beach at any given time. Employees in outside offices that deal with manufacturing engineering and software, for example, bring the team size to around 480, but in Ford terms, that’s still a very small division.

精简团队是约翰逊 14 条准则中概述的另一个核心原则，也是当今被引用最多的一条。在“臭鼬工厂”中，小型敏捷团队具有优势，因为正如第一条准则所述，它能消除繁文缛节。它使你能够快速行动，适应失败或变化，而无需应对大团队固有的组织惯性。为此，福特 EVDC 目前在长滩随时都有约 350 人在工作。加上处理制造工程和软件等外部办公室的员工，团队规模约为 480 人，但以福特的标准来看，这仍然是一个非常小的部门。

4. A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided. 4. 必须提供一个非常简单的图纸和图纸发布系统，并具备极大的变更灵活性。

This is an interesting one. EVDC is extremely well-equipped with everything from three types of 3D printers to a CNC mill bigger than my first three apartments (including one just for shaping full-size clay models). This allows for rapid iteration and a simplified approval process without the need to send changed models and drawings off-site for manufacturing. Speed also comes from everyone being under one roof, preventing silos. All of that is in addition to a wood shop, a metals shop, and more. Even elements like seat design and patterning are done in-house.

这一点很有趣。EVDC 设备极其齐全，从三种类型的 3D 打印机到比我前三套公寓加起来还大的数控铣床（包括一台专门用于塑造全尺寸粘土模型的铣床），应有尽有。这使得快速迭代和简化的审批流程成为可能，无需将修改后的模型和图纸送到外部进行制造。速度也源于每个人都在同一个屋檐下工作，从而防止了部门壁垒。除了这些，还有木工车间、金属车间等。甚至座椅设计和打版等环节也都是在内部完成的。

5. There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly. 5. 必须将所需的报告数量降至最低，但重要工作必须进行详尽记录。

The less time you spend justifying your decisions to upper management, the more time you have to actually do the work.

你花在向高层管理人员证明自己决策上的时间越少，你就有更多的时间去真正开展工作。

6. There must be a monthly cost review covering not only what has been spent and committed but also projected costs to the conclusion of the program. 6. 必须进行月度成本审查，不仅要涵盖已支出和已承诺的费用，还要涵盖项目结束前的预计成本。

This may seem like Project Management 101, but it goes beyond just budgeting time and money.

这看起来像是项目管理的基础课，但它不仅仅是时间和金钱的预算。