Amid Ford’s shift away from making giant electrical autos, the automaker is including a brand new product line to discover a dwelling for its batteries.
Ford stated Monday that as an alternative of scuttling plans to construct the batteries for these autos, it can pivot that capability into a brand new battery storage enterprise. These storage programs, which is able to use cheaper lithium iron phosphate batteries, will likely be used to energy knowledge facilities and assist buffer demand on the electrical grid.
Ford says the battery storage programs will begin delivery in 2027 and that the corporate plans to construct 20GWh of annual capability.
Ford will make investments about $2 billion into the brand new enterprise over the subsequent two years. Below the plan, Ford will repurpose the present manufacturing capability at its Kentucky manufacturing unit. Ford plans to provide LFP batteries utilizing know-how licensed from China’s CATL, in addition to battery vitality storage system modules and 20-foot DC container programs at this facility.
Ford will be part of a variety of automakers which can be working in or planning to enter the battery cupboard space. Tesla has spent the final decade promoting battery storage merchandise and deploys round 10GWh each quarter. Normal Motors additionally has a set of dwelling and business battery storage merchandise.
Lisa Drake, vice chairman of know-how platform applications and EV programs at Ford, stated the “predominant” alternative for the brand new enterprise will likely be business grid clients. However knowledge facilities will likely be secondary, after which Ford expects to supply some dwelling storage merchandise, Drake stated.
“It was clear once we went out to the market that the know-how of alternative for many of those clients was an LFP prismatic sort of container system,” Drake stated throughout a name with reporters. “And given the truth that we already had a license to construct that know-how within the U.S., you couple that with our manufacturing expertise over a century of high-scale manufacturing, it simply made loads of sense as a pure adjacency for us.”
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Ford’s BlueOval Battery Park Michigan in Marshall, which is slated to start manufacturing of LFP batteries in 2026, continues to be on observe, the corporate stated. These LFP batteries, which additionally use CATL tech, will likely be utilized in Ford’s upcoming mid-sized electrical truck. There will likely be one adjustment on the Michigan manufacturing unit, nevertheless. Ford stated it can even be used to make smaller Amp-hour cells to be used in “residential vitality storage options,” suggesting that Ford’s plan will transcend business clients.
The BlueOval Battery Park Michigan has gone by way of a number of iterations in its abbreviated life. In February 2023, Ford stated it might make investments $3.5 billion to construct the manufacturing unit to make LFP batteries for its rising portfolio of electrical autos. Ford abruptly halted development on the manufacturing unit in September 2023. Two months later, it introduced a dialed-back plan with a manufacturing capability of 20 gigawatt-hours, about 43% smaller than deliberate.
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