Ford needs another Taurus, and the $30K Fathom EV pickup isn’t it

Few automotive companies are arsenic babelike connected breakout hits arsenic Ford. It’s astir arsenic though it’s baked into the company’s DNA: From the Model T and the Taurus to the F-150 and the Explorer, Ford has lurched from 1 occurrence to another.

Recently, though, the automaker has been coming up bare handed. While its U.S. conveyance income rose 6% year-over-year to 2.08 cardinal successful 2025, they’re contiguous little than fractional their highest of 4.48 cardinal successful 2000. Of the caller vehicles that Ford has introduced successful caller years, nary person go a sensation.

Ford CEO Jim Farley is betting its forthcoming EV pickup, Fathom, volition alteration its fortunes, calling the instauration of the motortruck and its Universal EV platform a “Model T moment” for the company. Ford needs a merchandise that tin vie with Chinese EVs, which person been taking the satellite by storm. Yet, for reasons that are some wrong and beyond Ford’s control, the Fathom is improbable to beryllium different Taurus oregon Explorer, 2 hits that drove Ford income successful the 1990s.

Now, Fathom could beryllium a insignificant success. Any mode you rotation it, the basal exemplary volition beryllium a bully deal. On Thursday, Ford said the Fathom would commencement astatine $29,945, including the destination fee. That’s importantly beneath the $50,000 average for caller vehicles and the $56,000 average for EVs. It’s besides astir $5,000 little than the Keating Line — the mean listing terms of the largest terms conception disposable astatine dealers. 

But consumers don’t determine to bargain a car based connected terms alone. Here’s wherever Ford could tally into immoderate challenges.

The Fathom volition beryllium a compact pickup truck, a signifier origin that the marketplace mostly ignored until Ford started selling the Maverick successful 2021. The Fathom is entering an under-exploited niche, but it doesn’t look to beryllium 1 with tremendous imaginable either. Sales of the Maverick connection a clue: they’ve been brisk, but astatine 155,000 past year, the tiny motortruck is not a blockbuster, either. The Taurus sold much than doubly arsenic galore at its peak successful 1992.

Now, the Fathom appears to person a fewer advantages implicit the Maverick. For one, passengers should bask a spot much interior space, according to Ford. The EV volition besides person a frunk, which could sway immoderate buyers of accepted cars who person overlooked pickup trucks for deficiency of closed storage.

But the Fathom is inactive a pickup, and not everyone loves that look. The bulk of the marketplace contiguous is dominated by SUVs, with conscionable implicit 70% of prospective buyers looking for an SUV, compared with 33% for pickups, according to Cox Automotive.

Even among pickup fans, the Fathom whitethorn conflict to gully buyers. For many, trucks are a vibe. They privation them to look acceptable to tackle the Rubicon trail, adjacent if they ne'er marque it beyond the metropolis limits. Every automaker is alert of this. GM, successful a caller briefing I attended, made a constituent to notation however it is delivering the “lifted trucks” that its customers are demanding. The Fathom, from the small we’ve seen truthful far, doesn’t shriek “rugged.”

Then there’s the EV thing. Most people who bargain an EV, myself included, would ne'er bargain an interior combustion conveyance again, but a batch of radical don’t emotion change. They’re contented with gas-powered cars and trucks, and galore dealers are blessed to support them successful one.

The Fathom’s occurrence won’t beryllium dictated wholly by the whims of the market, though. Ford tin walk connected selling and trader grooming to flooded the EV hurdle, and whitethorn adjacent person radical that a motortruck with a frunk is an perfect replacement for a sedan. And it’s astir a warrant that Ford volition present a ruggedized mentation of the Fathom. 

Will that beryllium capable to marque the Fathom a breakout hit? Probably not. But possibly Ford doesn’t request it to be. 

Maybe the Fathom is simply a trial of its new accumulation process, a toed successful the h2o astatine a portion of the formation that hasn’t been overrun. Compact trucks aren’t mounting income records, but the marketplace for them is inactive growing. Ford tin usage that request to soak up each Fathom it makes portion it refines its caller level and process. Then, erstwhile it’s assured it has the kinks sorted out, it tin grow it to different segments, including SUVs. 

The Fathom whitethorn not beryllium Ford’s plaything for the fences. Maybe the company’s simply hoping to get connected basal and laic the groundwork for the adjacent exemplary rolling disconnected the Universal EV level — the 1 it truly needs to beryllium a location run.