Ford Motor is in the running to win its most important military contract since the Cold War. The automaker has announced it has entered the competition to build the U.S. Army's new tactical vehicle: a pickup truck capable of serving on the battlefield as a silent mobile electric power unit.
The initiative, which sees Ford competing for the project against longtime rival General Motors, fits within the context of the Pentagon's push to have automakers put their production capacity at the service of a complete modernization and resupply of American military equipment.
The Army, the Wall Street Journal reports, intends to produce approximately 600 of these vehicles: it confirmed today the awarding of contracts to GM, Ford and BC Customs (an off-road vehicle manufacturer) for the production of prototypes to be delivered next year. GM has been working for years on developing its version of the infantry squad vehicle, known as the ISV-Heavy.
The cost of the vehicles has not been disclosed: by way of comparison, the smaller tactical vehicles produced by GM are priced at $330,000 each. Military leaders are urging automakers and their suppliers to increase defense production and leverage the sector's industrial capacity to address the severe equipment shortages caused by the conflicts in the Middle East and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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