President Joe Biden is touring the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Michigan where he is also..
stan and my mark how are you today i'm agreeing you're for senior how are you doing mr president this is lisa curry in the team and she's going to be the operations manager for this new building the rouge electric vehicle center all right it's so nice to meet you sir good to see you so what do we got here so this is our glass cell so this is going to what's going to load our windshields and the back glasses to the unit so as you see as it comes around it'll pick up the glass this is where the operator would load the station the robot will come in pick up the glass after the urethane's already been applied and then it'll take the uh glass in apply the urethane in the sealer and then it would load to the unit this this one is the back glass side the other side for the windshield got you so the truck would travel right down the center i got between the two this one puts it in in the back that one puts it on the front yeah this is where the operator would uh he'd do the picking of the glass which uh depending on which level glass he would need put a primer on it and he would pick it up put it right there all right you know you guys don't know this but delaware the state of delaware had the highest percentage of auto workers in the nation oh really because we were so small workforce we had the largest gm plant in the country the largest chrysler plant it used to be a tank plant and then mopar and anyway the total of 34 000 uaw members out of the workforce real estate right of only about 410 000 people none of it we don't have any of it left anymore yeah but uh anyway so i spent a lot of time in auto plan that's how i thought it was going to get me by the way i got through my dad ran automobile dealerships barely i got through on cars [Laughter] pretty cool pretty cool so we have lots of new technologies coming up that's just kind of a simulation that will show you what we're going to be doing here over at the rouge electric field center pretty exciting stuff right thank you thanks for what you're doing that's a win welcome thank you we're inflection point in america you guys are the ones that are going to save it for real yeah we used to be engaged in more research and development any country in the world now we're number eight china's number one right we've got to beat this up they'll eat our lunch if you're not right thank you guys thank you thank you very much have a good year i'll be your boss i'm the boss [Laughter] all right have a good visit thanks guys thank you thank you mr president we're gonna go to the next stage and we're gonna show you some okay here [Music] hello guys i grew up with that work the daughter plants mr brothers stand there and i want to introduce kumar kohatra they're all buddies we met one of them we're emerging good afternoon hey everybody how are you okay so mr president uh we're electrifying our most iconic vehicles vehicles like our mustang the transit the f-150 which we're going to build right here but to total transition from internal combustion to battery electric is going to take more than just vehicles uh for example our dealers need to be ready for the new technology uh happy to say 2 300 100 of our dealers are already fully ev certified and we're growing that number secondly the charging infrastructure needs to be there as the volumes grow so we've put together one of the largest charging infrastructures in the country about 60 000 plugs but that's not enough so we as an industry and as a country need to invest a lot more to grow that number as the volumes grow well one of the things i have in my jobs plan is 550 000 charging stations along our highways that the federal government will put in because the truth of the matter is it's the thing that's going to jump start we're an inflection point in america we're either going to move and take over this area or we're going to be left behind absolutely and uh you know it's a little bit like my grandfather i he died when i was six months old my grandfather used to work for american oil company his job was to go back in the in the 30s he meant work for mr blaustein and he used to go from place to place opening up gas stations because no one wanted to have a all this all this gasoline and tanks underneath the ground in their neighborhoods and that's what his job was to open up gas stations that's how we got to scranton and wilmington and uh it's the same basic principle we got you know you ought to be able to go across and even though these batteries are increasing significantly the distance you can go the power they possess the size the weight is still going to take you should be able to get in a car electric vehicle and drive across the country without having to worry precisely that's that's that's where we need to go speaking of batteries you know we've been doing this for a long time we did our first hybrid electric in 2004 yeah the battery that was in there you see behind you that top of that big black box it was big it was bulky it was expensive took up the whole car um what you see here mr president are heavy the next generations the second third and the fourth i'm not supposed to leave my spot but [Laughter] and as you can tell they're getting lighter they're getting uh smaller they're even getting less expensive but still the the a battery electrics propulsion system is substantially more expensive than an internal combustion system so for example that battery was 200 pounds this one is now 60 pounds now is that the totality of the batteries you go in is this it no this is for our hybrid vehicle explorer and the f-150 hybrid you will see down there for the the big battery electric for f-150 that's much bigger than this one i'm going to say you really you surprised me no but this is i've learned something brand new i thought i knew it all no it's amazing but it's amazing how far we've come oh yeah no no it's just counted so absolutely astounding we're investing a lot in you know making the batteries cheaper making them more dense in energy and the batteries turn then the motors and the the transaxles my friend elise here works at our van dyke plan we're building those right here in michigan at a randy plan and i'm going to hand it to her by the way you buy one of these vehicles press you can run all electricity in your house you think i'm kidding your apartment you can actually hook it up to your apartment you know right now you hook in that you you plug into if you have an electric vehicle or a hybrid you plug into down in your garage an outlet you're going to be plugging in the other way that that's absolutely we're going to do that with our f-150 i'm sorry hi mr president this is um the roader i'm sorry yep and this is the ed40 stator which this rotor is placed and machined we machine and assemble this and the stator and this is placed inside the e e-trans and the people at fort vandyke are very excited and fortunate to have the opportunity to build this product for the american people and ryan mays is going to explain how the is assembled it's jobs jobs union jobs yes just remember the word union yes good afternoon how are you man good afternoon mr president i am in charge as far as assembling the e-motor transmission which on your front half is your gearbox the middle is your housing and with your end cap iso brain of the whole situation this is your primary drive unit which just sit in the front of the vehicle this has your parking brake uh assembly on it which all of your things also tell you man the idea have something this yeah small incredible it's pretty incredible i'll tell you thank you we at uaw 2280 are very honored and proud to be part of it semper fi mr president not only semper fi but i'm a union president very well thank you make no bones about it well thank you thank you mr president we're going to go down this way look at some really cool vault is the same for okay i'm not doing anything hey fellas how are you good how are you mr president you're over there oh my god i gotta stand by saying you don't like let me know right away will you yes sir let me know ahead of time hi adrian and the team and adrian is the director of advanced manufacturing and he's going to talk about some of the the next gen in manufacturing what's going to take us to the next hundred years so good afternoon mr president really good to have you here in our rev center where we're going to be building the uh the future of electrified trucks in here in the us and as you know we have a tremendous workforce here at ford bigger than any other in the in the us in terms of uaw and we want to talk a little bit about the future of work and for us the future of work is is actually people and technology working together in harmony and so you probably saw as you walk past our scanning robot that's used by the engineering team to map out the entire facility and we design everything online in digital before we actually start to build the building and then you probably saw here as you came past our two big agvs those we use for moving the bodies around the plant and again they work together with our team here to help them facilitate the builds and we can actually adjust the height ergonomically for different people in the workstations so it's uh matching the job to the people so that we can make the most out of it and then we're also launching a series of new technologies including some gamification technology that we use actually just to focus on the issues for the team so they're not bombarded with uh with issues and items but they can focus on getting their job done and then lastly right behind you here we have uh one of the largest cobots in the world yeah and that's a collaborative robot that works together with people so people can work uh right next to it and uh penny here who's the team leader for uh this area is gonna show you with one of our baby cobots how she can work together uh collaboratively with the uh with the robot okay so instead of it being in a guarded area as soon as it touches penny it will stop and then it will restart its job and so she can actually stand right next to it so once we start the lineup here penny will actually be working with this giant cobalt behind you as she uh works on the uh uh works with this robot that's actually measuring uh the onboard scale system that we have in the all-new f-150 that enables us to indicate to the customer how full their bed is uh with whatever they're hauling or shipping around the country and to be able to do that safely so that's something that we're using uh from a technology standpoint to help us um and again like collaboratively people in uh and technology working together for the future is there a training program that each employee will be going through before they get to the very extensive training because it's a big transition but it's also um much simpler work yeah it is but i mean how is there a time frame for that you have to go yeah as we as we prepare for launch we have a technical training center that we have in partnership with the uaw and so our employees go through that and then they get individual on-the-job training associated with the era that they're operating so uh our team here are all going to be team leaders operating in the plant um and working with this technology and in fact they're actually the experts they know more about any of this stuff than the rest of the engineering team so oftentimes uh penny spends a lot of time answering questions for people and actually managing the process well thank you you know we're a real inflection point here and every one of this comes along every 75 to 100 years and you are the point of that arrow of us being able to be said a giant we talk about how many jobs here but the way we're really going to increase child beyond what you're doing here i know i get a lot of your friends say what about the transmission plant they're not going to have one now what about this what about that but we got to take over the world market that's what this is about being the best in the world and be exporting these that's what we can do if we focus anyway thank you for what you know and what you do appreciate it thank you thank you thank you mr president your union okay thank you thanks guys thank you put you in my head we're going to go this way mr president i want to introduce you to our chief program engineer how are you so this is a part of her creation so and the team hi mr president how are you thanks for joining us i'm linda i'm the i'm the chief engineer for this product and um here at ford with nearly a century of truck know-how we know that reliability and durability are really important for our customers so when we went to create this all-electric f-150 we knew that we need we had to put it through the same engineering and test testing regimen as all of our f-series trucks so behind you here we've got videos of our all-electric truck going through some tough testing here in michigan also we do this around the country whether it's up high grades towing a trailer or here going through different terrains here in michigan but a lot of this actually starts with the engineering so what we have in front of you here is our underbody skateboard this has been purposefully built for our f-150 lightning to ensure that it can sustain the load of the weight of the vehicle with the added batteries this frame is an all-new frame with the strongest steel that we've ever used in any f-150 and this battery that's in front of you is the biggest battery that we have used in any ford vehicles what's the weight of the battery you have an idea the weight of the battery is um 1800 pounds is over 1800 pounds over 100 800 pounds 1800 1800 pounds so you hear that you got a center of gravity here yes low center of gravity which helps with the ride and handling and this battery not only helps with the drive for the vehicle to ensure that our customers can drive haul and tow but also we've been able to leverage this battery to provide additional tools for our customer so what you see here is actually a home and what this battery is able to do is be a backup power generator and came in case of power outages with the home sustaining the home for multiple days also on the go if our customers are looking for power we've got pro power on board which is able to help our customers power up a tailgate power up a campsite or work at a job site again ensuring that they can get the job done the other thing that we're very proud of here is that this vehicle is built in america here right here at the rouge electric vehicle factory but not only that a lot of our commodities are here as well so this frame that i mentioned is down from kentucky it comes here from there our battery the um it's out of georgia and then assembled here as well a little do with that one and then even our motors they're not only designed in-house um here at ford but also produced just up the street at van dyke plant so a lot of really great manufacturing here have you had to change the tires yes we did have to change the tires and the wheels for the weight of the battery and the tires we have several options but one of them is providing lower resistance so that you can get better range it's fascinating i was down at that plant down in georgia yeah and uh this battery doesn't look much smaller or any smaller than the one they're putting in the buses down there it's a very large battery it's basically two i know i know it's but it's amazing yeah if you see it and you know what we're trying to do also is they're going to have mostly every school bus in america will be electric because let's take the methane out of the air and a whole range of other things what's impressive yeah thank you thank you thank you so much mr president we're going to take you and one more question have you had to increase the length of the frame the length of the frame is about the same the length of the vehicle is about the same and it's a 145 wheelbase our most popular one with the crew cab super crew cab for five passengers as well as a full uh pickup box five and a half foot box yeah okay well thank you you're very welcome thank you thank you thank you that's where am i going going this way yeah you can come around this way so mr president we're going to show you um that's the other question i wanted to ask you linda i often get asked the question when i'm pumping electric vehicles what about exposure to water the electric okay i vehicle we can what's up [Applause] god [Applause] [Applause] so [Applause] please take your seats our program will begin shortly [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you
2021-05-21 15:40
