Ford revealed a new assembly line innovation for electric vehicles as the “Model T moment” it’s been teasing.

The three-branch “tree” assembly structure to debut at its Louisville, Ky., plant will produce more affordable EVs in a more efficient process on a smaller factory footprint, said the automaker’s CEO, Jim Farley, in a statement.

What the automaker is calling the Ford Universal EV Production System is the product of a “startup skunkworks” by a California-based engineering team.

The new system’s first product will be a $30,000 midsize pickup in 2027, “roughly the same as the Model T when adjusted for inflation,” Farley said.

He emphasized that the EVs made at the plant will be powered by batteries assembled in Michigan, “not imported from China,” and said the combined vehicle and battery operations will employ about 4,000 people and represent a $5 billion investment. The Trump administration’s trade tariffs have increased U.S. manufacturing as one of their two stated goals.

The CEO likened the EV production system innovation to the Model T assembly line breakthrough that made automobiles accessible to the mass market, calling it a “reinvention of our company.” EVs’ traditionally higher prices have been one of the drags on wider-scale adoption in the U.S.

“Ford is going to deliver what no other automaker has been able to: a family of affordable, adaptable electric vehicles that offer multiple body styles for work and play — including for export,” Farley said.

Ford broke the traditional assembly line into three main branches.  Vehicles’ fronts and rears will be assembled on separate lines, while the structural battery will be on a third line to be preassembled with seats, consoles and carpeting. The three branches merge at the end.

The flexible system will produce trucks, cars “and everything in between,” Farley said.

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