Ford F-150 Lightning manufacturing at Rouge Electric Vehicle Center (Source: Ford)
Ford today announced a significant move to LFP batteries for its electric vehicle line. The Dearborn company is tapping China’s CATL first for Chinese LFP batteries and then technology licensing for the previously rumored factory Ford plans to build in Michigan.
First, the numbers of the new Marshall, MI factory:
35GWh per year output in LFP batteries starting in 2026
400,000 vehicles in 2026. Ford plans on making 2M EVs in 2026 so that’s 20% of Ford’s global EVs getting batteries from the new plant.
Doing the math, that means that Ford plans average-sized LFP batteries to be around 87kWh. That’s smaller than an F-150 Lightning battery but slightly bigger than a Mach-E Standard range. Ford says they are going to have a similar lineup profile in 2026 but the smaller sized packs could be offset by iterative efficiencies
2,500 new or transferring Ford US employees + unknown amount of CATL employees
Ford will receive LFP batteries from CATL’s Chinese factories that will go into standard range Mustang Mach-e’s later this year and Ford F-150 Lightnings starting in 2024.
LFP (lithium iron phosphate battery) vs. NCM (nickel cobalt manganese)
Ford is communicating that it needs to use two separate battery chemistries for two separate use cases. NCM, which Ford and other carmakers currently primarily use for higher range EVs, excel in power, speed, and cold weather performance. Meanwhile, LFP chemistry excels in cost, availability of materials, and life span.
Tesla for years now has taken advantage of LFP batteries from CATL for their standard range batteries, and Ford here is (relatively) fast following.
Ford’s new Mustang Mach-e standard range stands to gain some range from the LFP battery pack. During the presentation and subsequent Q&A, we got a good look at the new battery pack size, which read 78.21 kWh on 225Ah at 347.8V. The current standard range Mach-e is similar sized but only around 70kWh usable. With LFP, Ford will be able to use more of the total pack size.
Mustang Mach-e LFP Battery pack
Ford acknowledged that LFP cells are inherently safer than NMC and said that the pack safety requirements allowed them to build packs that would close the density gap somewhat. But don’t expect Ford to market these packs as “safer” while it still sells NMC pack vehicles.
Electrek’s Take
A first for Ford building an LFP factory in the US is impressive, especially since Tesla has been building and importing Chinese CATL LFP cells packs for years. But Ford only hopes to reach 2 million EVs by 2026. That’s about 2-3 years behind Tesla, which hopes to reach that number this year.
And who knows, Tesla could add LFP lines to one of its Gigafactories between now and 2026 relatively easily. But for now, let Ford have its first.
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In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.
France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.
And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:
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While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.
That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.
“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”
The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.
With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.
On today’s tariff-tastic episode of Quick Charge, we’ve got tariffs! Big ones, small ones, crazy ones, and fake ones – but whether or not you agree with the Trump tariffs coming into effect tomorrow, one thing is absolutely certain: they are going to change the price you pay for your next car … and that price won’t be going down!
Everyone’s got questions about what these tariffs are going to mean for their next car buying experience, but this is a bigger question, since nearly every industry in the US uses cars and trucks to move their people and products – and when their costs go up, so do yours.
New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.
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GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.
GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.
At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.
The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.
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Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”
SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.
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