Ford Says ‘Eyes-Off’ Driving Coming to New $30,000 Electric Truck in 2028

A Ford all-electric F-150 Lightning truck prototype is seen at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Mich., in this file photo. Rebecca Cook/Reuters

Ford Motor Company said on Jan. 8 that it’s developing new hardware and software that will enable autonomous eyes-off driving capabilities by 2028 in a newly developed and affordable electric truck.

Doug Field, Ford’s chief officer of electric vehicles (EVs), digital, and design, said at the Great Minds Stage at CES 2026 in Las Vegas that the Detroit automaker plans on rolling out a more affordable four-door midsize electric truck in 2027 with a starting price tag of $30,000 as the first product of its new universal EV platform, with a new production system that will speed up assembly and reduce costs.

The electric truck will be made at Ford’s assembly plant in Louisville, Kentucky, and will feature an upgraded version of Ford’s BlueCruise driver-assisted technology. Ford will leverage its advanced vehicle electronics architecture that was announced last summer to add eyes-off driving to a much wider range of vehicles, Field said in a post on the company’s “From the Road” blog.

“Truly impactful technology must be attainable. If it doesn’t reach the many, it isn’t a revolution—it’s a luxury,” said Field, who also spent time at Tesla, Apple and Segway.

Popular driver-assisted technologies such as Ford’s semi-autonomous Blue Cruise or Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system can handle the bulk of driving duties, but drivers must still remain alert and attentive to road and traffic conditions lest the systems disengage.

Ford did not say how much the advanced eyes-off driving system would add to vehicle costs. BlueCruise currently is available for a one-time purchase of $2,495 on select new Ford vehicles, or for seven years at $495 per year. The system has an ongoing usage cost of $49.99 per month.

Field said Ford’s new autonomous driving technology is made possible by its commitment to in-house development of advanced electronic vehicle computing architecture that controls driver assistance, infotainment, audio and networking capabilities. More than 35 million of the modules have been deployed to date, Field added.

“Many are outsourcing the soul of their machines and saving their best work for their most expensive vehicles,” Field said.

“We chose a different path: build the capability in-house, fuse deep software and hardware expertise with Ford’s global scale, and make the math work for the customer. That’s how we turn the advanced into the accessible.”

Paul Costa, Ford’s executive director of electronics platforms, said the company is producing 10 million vehicle computing modules each year. Its next-generation high-performance computing center—also announced at CES 2026—offers increased performance and lower costs in a footprint that’s nearly half the size of the current vehicle computing architecture.

“By combining IVI [in-vehicle infotainment] and ADAS [advanced driver assistance systems] on a single, optimized platform, we dramatically reduce complexity and boost flexibility for future features,” Costa said in a post on Ford’s blog.

“This strategic vertical integration ensures we control the entire hardware and software stack. We plan to bring this thinking across the entire Ford portfolio over time.”