Speaking at the Future of Everything conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal, Ford CEO Jim Farley said the transition to next-generation digital and electric cars requires in many cases a different kind of talent his company doesn’t yet have and will not be able to fully source internally. 

“This is the hard part: I’m not sure we can upskill everyone; I don’t think they’re going to make it,” Farley said. “There’s a new skill set we’re going to need, and I don’t think I can teach everyone—it will take too much time. So there is going to be disruption in this transition.”

Ford currently employs about 57,000 union-represented hourly manufacturing workers in the U.S., more than any other American carmaker.

Additionally, it plans incremental hiring of roughly another 18,400 over the next three years—more than half of which however will build EVs and battery packs.

This is a crucial reason his company is investing a couple billion into completing the century-old and long-abandoned Michigan Central Station.

Located in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, only miles from its headquarters in Dearborn, Ford wants to transform the station left dormant since 1988 into a new software mobility hub that will connect its next generation of high-tech vehicles.

“I think we’re going to need to do a lot of projects like that,” he said.  

Ford CEO Jim Farley speaks with @JoannaStern at the #WSJFuture of Everything Festival https://t.co/wKvDD2tPuS

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 3, 2023

Incumbent manufacturers like Ford that have long dominated the auto industry now find themselves on the back foot. 

New competitors like Tesla and BYD in China threaten to make them obsolete through electrically powered vehicles defined by their ability to add new features after purchase through software, keeping them fresh for customers and better maintaining their resale value over time.

Ford is now in the process of building a $5.6 billion assembly plant outside Memphis that will cover nearly six square miles.

From 2025 onward, roughly 6,000 employees will build annually up to a half million next-generation electric trucks sporting the working title T3.

It’s Ford’s most ambitious project to date since the T3 is expected to be chock-full of software that includes the latest Ford has to offer in the area of autonomous driving features. 

A new wave of talent needed

Unlike the F-150 Lightning, this vehicle is expected to be conceived from the ground up as an EV.

Utilizing an existing combustion-engine platform can instead result often in too many tradeoffs that minimize range or performance compared with a dedicated EV architecture.

Ford has been building trucks for more than 100 years. Now we’re reimagining what’s possible and what a truck can be. Our next electric truck, #ProjectT3 will be unlike anything you’ve ever seen. #TrustTheTruck pic.twitter.com/qhr2JgJzks

— Jim Farley (@jimfarley98) March 24, 2023

Although EVs can run off the same factory line as their conventionally powered siblings, there is one major difference.

At 400 volts and above, there’s enough juice to accidentally fry a human being. To help identify potentially deadly contacts, certain wiring is colored bright orange as a result.

All those working on an EV powertrain—whether shop-floor staff or mechanics at a repair garage—therefore need to be properly trained and certified for their own safety.

While Farley happily pointed to Tesla’s own problems—like its aging lineup, the ubiquity of certain products like the Model Y, or CEO Elon Musk’s own tainted brand—he acknowledged Ford still needed to recruit a new wave of different talent. 

“We’re a long way from ready,” Farley said.