Dane {Hardware} (proper), Ford design and launch engineer, and Mary Fredrick, Ford battery validation engineer, measure the voltage of a battery ut
Dane {Hardware} (proper), Ford design and launch engineer, and Mary Fredrick, Ford battery validation engineer, measure the voltage of a battery utilizing a digital multimeter at Ford’s Battery Benchmarking and Check Laboratory in Allen Park, Michigan.
Ford
DETROIT — Ford Motor plans to speculate $185 million into a brand new battery lab as a step towards manufacturing its personal battery cells for electrical automobiles, the corporate introduced Tuesday.
The funds will go towards developing Ford Ion Park, a “pilot facility” for manufacturing that is anticipated to open by the tip of subsequent 12 months exterior Detroit. The deliberate 200,000-square-foot lab is designed to speed up growth of the applied sciences as the corporate plans to “ultimately manufacture” new battery cells and batteries, in response to Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s chief product platform and operations officer.
Ford declined to debate a timeline for producing battery cells internally. The corporate presently purchases cells from suppliers reminiscent of South Korea-based SK Innovation.
Ford’s new facility won’t be a full battery cell manufacturing facility like Tesla has or like Basic Motors has introduced as a part of $4.6 billion investments in two U.S. battery cell manufacturing crops with LG Vitality Resolution.
Thai-Tang stated Ford believes it nonetheless is sensible to buy the cells from suppliers till EVs develop into extra mainstream. EVs represented solely about 2% of U.S. automobile registrations final 12 months, in response to IHS Markit.
“We need to give Ford the flexibleness and optionality to ultimately vertically combine, and that was one of many drivers behind the creation of this battery heart of excellence in Ford Ion Park,” Thai-Tang advised reporters throughout a media briefing Tuesday. “It is actually for us to develop that experience and competency in home, and provides us that flexibility sooner or later.”
Thai-Tang stated Ford will give attention to “advancing” the next-generation of lithium-ion batteries which are used at present. The corporate can also be wanting into solid-state lithium metallic batteries thought-about safer and higher than the cells in the marketplace now. He stated Ford plans to take action via inside work in addition to collaborations.
Ford is hiring 150 individuals for Ion Park and has already introduced on some workers.
The funding and hiring comes after Ford put $100 million into a brand new battery benchmarking and check lab. The corporate stated it opened the ability final 12 months in Allen Park, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The 2 investments add to Ford’s plans to place $22 billion into automobile electrification from 2016 via 2025.
Ford’s first new EV, the Mustang Mach-E, launched within the U.S. on the finish of final 12 months. The corporate expects to comply with it with an all-electric Ford Transit van later this 12 months and an EV model of the Ford F-150 pickup by mid-2022.
Ford’s plan to fabricate battery cells comes six months after new Ford CEO Jim Farley stated the automaker was “completely” keen on producing its personal batteries. Farley modified the course set by his predecessor, Jim Hackett, who had stated the automaker noticed “no benefit” in doing so. Farley succeeded Hackett on Oct. 1.
Ford’s announcement comes a day earlier than the corporate is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings.
Shares of Ford are up by greater than 80% since Farley turned CEO, together with 40% in 2021. The corporate’s market cap is greater than $48 billion.