Investing.com -- Ford Motor has developed a new electric vehicle platform at its Long Beach, California facility that will underpin the automaker's next generation of EVs, as the company continues its electric vehicle push while much of the industry pulls back.

The Universal Electric Vehicle, or UEV, platform is expected to be critical to Ford transforming its Model e EV unit from billions of dollars in annual losses to breakeven by 2029. The company has said its future EVs will be profitable within a year of launching.

The first planned product based on the UEV is a roughly $30,000 midsize pickup truck for the U.S. market next year, followed by additional vehicles built on the platform.

"The midsize pickup truck, there won't be anything that competes with it, either in price or product form, and so I think it sort of stands alone in that sense," said Alan Clarke, Ford's EV product leader, during an interview with CNBC at the company's Electric Vehicle Development Center in Long Beach.

Clarke, who had spent 12½ years at Tesla, was recently promoted from senior director to vice president of Advanced Development Projects.

"Agility is key," Clarke said. "We've been able to pivot around all the different market conditions. The EV industry has had massive headwinds, and so we've had to adjust."

Ford expects the new EVs to have comparable costs to gas-powered vehicles through new technologies and efficiencies. They include a smaller battery pack comprised of new, U.S.-produced lithium iron phosphate cells as well as a 48-volt electrical architecture that improves efficiency and lowers weight.

Clarke said he remains "pretty confident" that the UEV platform can be competitive against Chinese vehicles. He added that the companies play by "different rules," referring to the government support Chinese companies receive, along with their lower labor costs.

"We only win with speed, and we have to play by the rules here," Clarke said. "We're pretty confident that we're going to be competitive, and we're really hungry to be seen as competitive, and we won't win, ultimately, unless we get down to the prices that American consumers are willing to pay for EVs like this."