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Ford Motor is the latest company to reveal its plans about making its own batteries for electric cars. Based on the reports, the American automaker based in Detroit has intentions of developing lithium-ion batteries for its EVs.
Ford preparing to enter the battery-making game
This type of battery is now considered an important part of the production of electric cars; thus, more and more companies are getting into the battery-making market. Many carmakers are moving away from gas-powered vehicles and slowly shifting to electric ones, and it is not just a trend, but it is an effort to curb gas emissions that are harming the planet as well.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Ford Motor announced its plans to open a development center for batteries. The company is setting aside $185 million for this facility that will rise in Michigan.
Once the center starts operating, and the projects are successful, Ford’s chief product and operations officer, Hau Thai-Tang, said that they will eventually proceed to produce their own battery cells. It is hoped that the battery development facility will be completed next year. The executive disclosed this plan during a press briefing on Tuesday, April 27.
The planned facility
Since Ford welcomed Jim Farley as its new chief executive officer last fall, it has laid out a more aggressive plan to boost sales and everything else. Apparently, moving into batteries is also part of the agenda.
As per The Washington Post, the company will build a 200,000-square-foot facility and will be equipped with tools for designing, testing, and manufacturing of battery packs and cells, and of course, they will start with small-scale battery production.
It was said that as Ford continues to explore what more it can do, the soon-to-open center will also develop electronic controls and other items. Once they successfully developed these technologies, the automaker will then proceed to go full-scale production, but CNBC noted that Ford will not be a full battery cell production facility like what Tesla and GM are planning to do.
"We now see that the market is going to develop very quickly, and we will have sufficient scale to justify having greater levels of integration," Thai-Tang said regarding Ford’s venture into battery-making. "We will no longer take an approach of hedging our bets and planning around the uncertainty of how fast that will play out.
