Ford Confirms CATL and BYD As Battery Suppliers

At their recent investor conference, Lisa Drake, Chief Operating Officer of Ford Motor, said that Ford will maintain its cooperation with five battery suppliers, including Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), BYD, SK, LG Energy Solution, and Panasonic. “Our goal is to establish a global production capacity of 240 GWh by 2030,” she added.

“CATL has already begun to supply us,” said one Ford China executive to reporters from Cailian on Tuesday. CATL said the details would depend on the customer’s response, according to the report.

Ford also said that it plans to increase its production capacity of electric vehicles to 600,000 units per year within two years and become the second-largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the world.

Although the specific cooperation plan with CATL and BYD has not been disclosed, the cooperation between Ford and SK has taken the lead in the US market. It now shares the huge potential for the market of 240GWh battery capacity in the future. In September 2021, Ford announced it would cooperate with SK Innovation to build two giant plants in Tennessee and Kentucky to produce electric trucks and batteries. The joint investment of the project was planned to be $11.4 billion, of which Ford would contribute $7 billion.

Ford will spend 5.8 billion US dollars building a 1,500-acre mega-plant in Kentucky, known as the BlueOvalSK Battery Park. The factory will mainly be used to produce batteries needed for Ford’s own electric vehicles. The first factory is expected to be put into use in 2025, and the second one the following year.

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On May 26, 2021, Ford announced on its Capital Markets Day that it would move from its current business model to one that incorporates more electrification. As a result, the sales volume of its pure electric vehicles would account for only 40% of the company’s total sales volume by 2030. Meanwhile, Ford also raised its electrification business expenditure forecast by 2025 to more than $30 billion.