Ford Motors and its battery supplier SK Innovation are going to invest $11.4 billion for the upcoming F-150 assembly plant and three battery plants. The three battery plants will be located in the United States, this accelerating the country’s push towards electric vehicles.
In addition to the above announcement, Ford also mentions increasing its global vehicle volume from 40% to 50%. Earlier the company aimed for a 40% vehicle volume by 2030. With this new investment, both the companies are to create 11,000 jobs in the assembly and battery plants. Also, the plants are to be located in Stanton, Tennessee, and Glendale, Kentucky. Where Glendale will have two battery plants.
Earlier Ford announced an investment of $30 billion by 2030 to electrify its fleet. It says both the plants will be open by 2025. The present announcement is the single largest manufacturing investment in the history of Ford’s existence. Compared to Ford’s existing Rouge manufacturing complex in Michigan, the new battery plants will be three times more in size.
Ford Noth American Chief Operating Officer Lisa Drake said, “For us, this is a very transformative point where we are putting our capital in place now in a very big way to lead the transition to EVs.”
SK Innovation
The automaker’s investment in the plants will be around $7 Billion, and the rest will be covered by SK Innovation. It is said that the Kentucky plant will get getting $7 billion investment and Tennessee will be getting a $5.6 billion investment. SK Innovation is a south Korean battery maker which currently supplied batteries to Ford. The company already has battery plants in South Korea, China, Hungary, and the United States.
With the new investment, SK Innovation will successfully have an annual battery capacity of about 150 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in the United States. Furthermore, the company states that they are expecting to have a global annual production of up to 200 GWh of batteries by 2025. Currently, its global capacity is 40 GWh.
Ford plans to launch the electric F-150 Lightning pickup in Spring this year. It has been aggressively pushing the manufacturing processes to launch the EV soon. The new capacity in the plants would be making more than 1 million EVs.
In Tennessee the plant will be a 3,600 acre “mega campus” will be called Blue Oval City. By employing 5,800 people, the plant with be making lithium-ion batteries and will have a supplier park. It is expected to start production by 2025. The next factory will be open the following year.
