Ford said Thursday that it has secured 100% of the battery supplies needed to deliver electric vehicles at a rate of 600,000 per year by the end of 2023 – and that Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology will help it get to a rate of 2 million EVs per year by 2026, while reducing the costs of some of Ford’s most popular electric models.
Investors and Wall Street analysts have questioned whether global automakers like Ford will be able to source the batteries and raw materials needed to hit their ambitious EV sales targets. Ford’s announcements were part of a larger presentation intended to show that it has already secured much of the supplies it will need.
“Ford’s new electric vehicle lineup has generated huge enthusiasm and demand, and now we are putting the industrial system in place to scale quickly,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a statement. “Our Model e team has moved with speed, focus and creativity to secure the battery capacity and raw materials we need to deliver breakthrough EVs for millions of customers.”
Ford said that it will begin offering vehicles with lower-cost lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries from Contemporary Amperex, better known as CATL. While LFP batteries provide somewhat shorter range per pound than Ford’s current batteries, they also cost about 10% to 15% less, Ford said – and they will reduce the company’s reliance on minerals such as nickel that are expected to be in short supply over the next few years.
