If you ask Lisa Drake, the $3 billion construction project about 90 minutes from Detroit doesn’t just represent what’s next for the Ford Motor Company. It’s also a homecoming of sorts.

The project known as the BlueOval Battery Park Michigan will be the first automaker-owned factory in the United States producing lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells—a less-expensive, workhorse type of battery that’s now utterly dominated by Chinese companies. 

LFP batteries are key to making vastly more affordable future electric vehicles, said Drake, the vice president of Technology Platform Programs and EV Systems for Ford. And the automaker’s upcoming factory represents a shot at re-shoring technology. 

“It slipped through our grasp to the rest of the world, to battery plants everywhere, but we don’t have them,” Drake told InsideEVs in an interview ahead of a media tour of the plant Monday. “This is an opportunity for Ford to lead in this space and bring the technology back to the U.S.”

Construction of the 2 million square-foot plant in Marshall, Michigan, is well underway. Over the next few months, it will be filled with manufacturing equipment to turn raw materials into LFP battery cells for future EVs. That includes the cheaper model that Ford’s “skunkworks” team is working on in California.

When completed, it’s expected to bring about 1,700 manufacturing jobs. Ford will then be the only automaker building LFP batteries in America. The company isn’t saying how many battery cells the plant will make or for how many EVs, but it is targeting about 20 gigawatt-hours per year of energy output, about two-thirds the targets of Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory. Back-of-the-napkin math suggests that’s enough for around 250,000 cars with modestly sized packs.  

Getting to this point has not been without difficulty or controversy.

LFP batteries were indeed developed in the U.S., by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin in the late 1990s. However, the technology was heavily commercialized and patented by an array of Chinese companies. Automakers in that country have since run with LFP batteries and developed groundbreaking new applications for them, including BYD’s five-minute fast-charging Flash battery.

Today, when U.S.-based automakers like Ford and Tesla use LFP batteries, they are sourced from the Chinese giant CATL. Those EVs include some current versions of Ford’s Mustang Mach-E. 

In order to manufacture its own LFP batteries stateside, Ford has to license the technology from CATL, something that has drawn the ire of U.S. lawmakers in recent years and sparked a political uproar in Michigan.  

The batteries use a Ford-specific design, and equipment at the plant has been sourced from unnamed global companies; the chemistry itself, product design and manufacturing process to make those batteries are what’s licensed from CATL, Ford officials said. CATL employees will eventually arrive to advise and train American workers on how to use that equipment. 

While Drake admits the battery project “got caught up in the political storm,” she said doing the project this way was “the right thing to do” for both jobs and Ford’s future EV projects. 

“We don’t misappropriate [intellectual property] at Ford,” she said. “You just can’t use it without that. You’ll be in violation of a piece of paper that has passed across the globe. It’s just a means to get that back.”

The New U.S. Affordable EV Battery Race

China got hold of LFP technology, built it out, scaled it and got better and better at it every year, Drake said. If all goes according to plan for Ford, the U.S. can do the same. 

“You’ll often hear people say, ‘Well, China holds 90% of the raw materials, or you can’t build LFP without Chinese materials,'” she said. “I’m here to tell you that that’s not true, that you can build LFP without Chinese critical minerals. It’s very, very difficult to do, but our supply chain team at Ford went and did it.” 

Ford is also in a race with crosstown rival General Motors to develop lithium-manganese-rich (LMR) batteries, which should also unlock more affordable EVs independent of China’s supply chains. Both are expected to be deployed by the end of this decade. 

Like many other automakers, Ford is dipping into several different battery chemistries for different applications. It also currently uses nickel-manganese-cobalt (NCM) batteries developed with South Korean companies SK On and LG Energy Solution; most U.S.-market EVs use this chemistry. 

Photo by: Ford

However, Drake said that LFP batteries will be essential to making affordable EVs quickly. It probably could have taken Ford “a decade” to fully scale up LFP technology on its own, she said, but this deal will hopefully allow them to get a jump-start. “We’ll use all three [battery chemistries] because we have a full-line EV plan,” Drake said. 

“We have affordable EVs, entry-level. We have our commercial EVs, which are very important to Ford. And then our next generation pickup built in Tennessee, that will get the NCM [battery] as well,” she said. 

The batteries coming out of Marshall will go into the first kind of car specifically, plant officials said. And that alone could represent a comeback of sorts for Ford. 

While it was early to the modern electric race with the Mach-E, F-150 Lightning and E-Transit, Ford’s immediate ambitions have cooled off as EV demand failed to skyrocket to projected levels. It has since canceled a three-row electric SUV and delayed other products, including an ostensible EV truck successor to the Lightning. 

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Source: InsideEVs

Besides that vehicle, Ford’s hopes for the future rest on its “skunkworks” program, a secretive project that aims to make low-cost EVs to compete with China’s automakers and Tesla. Those will include a midsize truck (possibly Ranger-sized) and a small crossover, Ford has said, and up to six other body styles.

The hope is that these more affordable EVs, whose prices have not been revealed, will help drive up electric car demand, said Scott Davis, CEO of BlueOval Battery Michigan LLC, the wholly-owned Ford subsidiary behind the plant. 

“We are really excited for the EV adoption to pick up,” Davis said. “A key part of that is the value story for the end customers. And of course, localizing here in America supports that very directly.” 

A Political Fight For Ford

Shifting U.S. policy priorities toward EVs have created headwinds for the project. Ford now stands to lose the battery production credit created by the Inflation Reduction Act if President Donald Trump’s tax-slashing Big, Beautiful Bill is signed into law. That tax credit would offset a significant amount of the costs involved with the factory, company officials said. Ford executive chairman Bill Ford has said losing that would imperil jobs. 

Ford BlueOval Battery Park Michigan

Photo by: Ford

Meanwhile, the connection to CATL remains a point of contention. The plant was originally slated to go to Virginia, but it was rejected by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin over his concerns about Chinese involvement. CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, was also added to a Pentagon blacklist at the beginning of this year. (The company called the move “a mistake” because it “has never engaged in any military-related business or activities.”) 

“If [local authorities] and the Ford Motor Company proceed with partnering with CATL, they risk supporting a company linked to the erosion of American manufacturing, and the endangerment of the brave men and women who serve our country in the military, as well as a company linked to the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang,” said Rep. John Moolenaar, the chairman of the House Select Committee on China.

Ford, however, has maintained that the factory is “Ford-owned and Ford-operated,” and Drake said the licensing deal with CATL is merely a “legal fact” because of who owns the patents. And not investing in the plant risks putting the American auto industry further behind China’s. 

“I think if people really knew what was at stake, they’d say ‘Go for it,'” Drake said. 

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Source: Ford

Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com