Ford is taking the first step towards producing its own electric car battery

Ford announced the start of a new battery development center in Michigan, the first step towards taking some of the burden off of building its own battery cell for electric cars at home.

The new “global battery center of excellence” will be called Ford Ion Park and will be based in Southeast Michigan. Ford said its purpose is to research how to know how to make your own electric vehicle batteries. A team of 150 experts will work on ways to make EV batteries that are long-lasting, quick-charging, and durable for the environment. They will also develop a process to make batteries quickly, cheaply and on a scale.

But the Ford Ion Park, which will open at the end of next year, will not house any actual battery manufacturing on the scale. The new center will have a “lab scale and pilot scale” battery assembly, said the new director of the center, Anand Shankaran, but the vehicle manufacturer will have to build a new factory to manufacture EV batteries at scale. When it anticipates starting its battery cell production line, Ford will not provide a timeline, nor will it build a new factory for battery manufacturing.

“It’s really up to us to develop that expertise and capability in-house and give us that flexibility in the future,” said Hou Thai-Tang, Ford’s chief platform and operations officer. “so stay tuned.”

Ford, which is still in the early phase of its transition to electric vehicles, said it planned to spend $ 22 billion through 2025, including $ 7 billion on autonomous vehicles. The production plans for most vehicles will be battery-electric vehicles, but the company also has hybrid and plug-in hybrid models with conventional internal combustion engines.

Ford began delivery of its first long-range EV, the Mustang Mach-E, despite some initial hiccups with software updates. It also introduced an all-electric transit van last year and plans to unveil an electric version of its bestselling F-150 pickup truck later this year.

This is a more economically risky move with potentially lucrative rewards in the future if Ford can successfully supplement production from its own suppliers. Ford currently sources its batteries from SK Innovation of South Korea, which recently lost a trade secret dispute with rival LG Chem that could be a hindrance to its imports into the US. (Companies Recently reached an agreement This may be to avoid possible import restrictions.) By making its own batteries, Ford can avoid some of the conflicts arising from networking abroad.

Despite these plans, Ford will have to move more aggressively if it hopes to hold on to its rivals such as Tesla, Volkswagen, and General Motors. GM is building two battery factories in the US with its partner LG Chem, while VW recently revealed plans to have six “Gigafactories” in Europe by 2030. Tesla, meanwhile, is in the early stages of making its own “tabless” battery. Sale at home.

As recently as last July, then-CEO Jim Hackett said Ford had “no use” in building its own battery cell. But Jim Farley, who replaced Hackett in October, Took the opposite view, The manufacture of batteries has been described as a “natural” step as EV volume increases.

According to Thai-Tang, the new center is an indication of how serious Ford is about building its business around manufacturing and selling electric vehicles. “We’re very fast and aggressive in how fast we think this transition is going to play out,” he said.