Ford Vice Chair John Lawler Open To Using Vehicle Platforms From Other Automakers

As many are already well aware, Ford currently utilizes Volkswagen’s MEB platform to underpin a pair of European EVs – the Capri and Explorer – which is just part of the expansive partnership between the two companies. However, we’ve known for some time that Ford isn’t ruling out additional partnerships that also involve the sharing of resources such as vehicle platforms, a topic that the automaker’s Vice Chair, John Lawler, touched on recently.

“When it comes to technologies from a standpoint of multi-energy, so HEVs, PHEVs, EREVs, does everybody need to develop that? Or are there going to be a few that have that where you’d partner and you’d leverage their capacity?” Lawler said at the 2025 AllianceBernstein Strategic Decisions Conference. “It could come down to where you have platforms where – a vehicle platform, and then you’re just putting a top hat on somebody else’s platform because there are scale opportunities. It could come down to certain emerging players who want to grow globally that they don’t invest in their own manufacturing facilities and you share a platform in those facilities.”

These comments join some others from Lawler recently that indicate Ford may be sourcing powertrains from other companies more in the future, too. “I think powertrains – ICE powertrains over time are going to need to consolidate, and they’re not going to be differentiated. I don’t think that consumers really think about powertrains the way they did 30 years ago, where it defined what a vehicle was, the horsepower, the displacement, the torque and everything about the vehicle, I think a lot of that is gone. And so does everybody need to develop the next 4-cylinder and 6- cylinder as that arc comes?”

It’s worth noting that Ford’s relationship with Volkswagen has already led to some shared resources in that regard. In fact, certain Volkswagen engines have been treated to the Ford EcoBoost and EcoBlue names already, even though they aren’t made by The Blue Oval. Additionally, some of Ford’s European vans, such as the Tourneo Connect and Transit Connect, exist essentially as rebadged Volkswagen vans born of the partnership between the two companies, too.