Leaders Say Ford Louisville Assembly Plant Retooling Will Benefit City

As Ford Authority previously reported, the Louisville Assembly plant is set to close late this year, after which the automaker will invest $2 billion in the site to retool it for the production of future EVs. The first such model will be a mid-size all-electric pickup riding on the company’s new universal EV platform, which is set to enter production in 2027, though we don’t yet know what it will be called. Though it will be closed for some time, leaders in that part of Kentucky believe that the retooling of the Louisville Assembly plant will be good for the city.

“It puts Louisville, Kentucky, on the map as leading in the technology of electric vehicles and also advanced manufacturing,” the city’s mayor, Craig Greenberg, told WKLY news. “Global suppliers, whether they’re from Germany or California, want to locate around the facility, not just other production facilities, but perhaps R&D facilities, front offices,” added Trevor Pawl, CEO of the Louisville Economic Development Alliance, noting that Ford’s investment in the plant could attract other businesses to the area. “We need to make sure that we’re hitting on all cylinders as it relates to what’s important to the auto industry. And that does include software.”

“Ford Motor Company popped up, and I had looked at it, and it showed me that they were putting in a bank of solar panels on a parking lot,” said Metro Councilwoman Betsy Ruhe, who represents the district housing the Louisville Assembly plant. “And you read the notation there, and that’s for their demo vehicles,” she added, referring to the number of building permit requests the city has received as early signs of the investment’s impact. “I’m thrilled to pieces that they’re going to be building EVs. They’re going to be building them here, and they’re going to be affordable.”

Ruhe did acknowledge that this type of growth could place a strain on Louisville’s housing market, and that may require a shift in strategy, however. “We need to have greater density, and we need to think about the way we’re doing it because we can’t simply keep building subdivisions because we’re running out of room,” she said.