The Oakville plant where the Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus are currently built is being retooled for EVs.
This is a bit of unexpected news, considering the latest reports surrounding Ford and Lincoln’s midsize SUVs. The Ford Edge is leaving the North American market after this model year, and everyone expected the same from its luxury counterpart. After all, the automaker builds both models at its Oakville, Ontario plant, which is also undergoing a transformation in the next year (more on that momentarily). Why is Lincoln announcing a new Nautilus and how different will it be from the SUV we currently know?
Today’s announcement shared a single short clip showing a computer-generated dashboard, so it’s tough to say at the moment. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait long to find out what Lincoln’s getting at here — the reveal is coming on Monday evening, April 17 in New York City.
While the image above is a rendering and Lincoln emphatically mentions the production model may vary, it’s clear the new car is getting a major tech overhaul from the current version. A large, full-width screen dominates the new dashboard. Weirdly, there is still a center display that actually looks a bit smaller than the 2023 model’s 13.2-inch unit. Perhaps the idea is to place major controls closer to the occupants’ fingertips, while actually displaying relevant driver and passenger information on the larger screen.
Again, this is just a teaser, so we can’t see too much at the moment. Massively overexposing the above teaser image reveals a little more detail:
It’s difficult to tell exactly what’s going on right behind the steering wheel. Is there a small display there, or is that bump in the dash meant to be an attention-monitoring camera? Below the center rectangular display, there seem to be a couple climate vents (while others are positioned atop the dashboard), and it appears you get a few toggle switches for the gear selection (P – R – D – L seem to be the four small switches on the right). The engine start-stop button is to the left of the transmission buttons in the current Nautilus, so it stands to reason that’s what that last switch we can see is about.
Speaking of which…what will power this new model?
While we have seen a new Chinese-market Nautilus a few months back — not to mention they’re getting the new Edge as a long-wheelbase model — what is powering the new Lincoln Nautilus we’ll see in New York? Will it be an EV?
There is some evidence to support that based on recent news. Ford Motor Company announced just this week that it will revamp the Oakville plant to produce electric vehicles by 2025. The automaker is investing C$1.8 billion ($1.35 billion USD) to turn the plant into a “high-volume hub”. Timely, perhaps, that we’re hearing about a new Nautilus now.
If the new Lincoln Nautilus is indeed an EV, will it ride on a current Ford Platform, like the GE1 platform underpinning the Mustang Mach-E, or will it ride on a completely new, electric-dedicated platform?
Again, we’ll (hopefully) have some concrete answers to these questions on Monday. It’s a strange situation, since all other Lincoln models are produced alongside their related Ford models. The Navigator and Corsair are both built in Louisville, Kentucky, albeit at separate plants, alongside the Expedition and Escape, respectively. Ford builds the Lincoln Aviator alongside the Explorer in Chicago. With the Edge decidedly out of the picture at Oakville, it seems like the perfect time to reshape the Nautilus’ identity for the North American market.
Stay tuned for more updates on Monday! In the meantime, check out one of Lincoln’s latest concepts below:
