Ford Plans to Develop and Produce Electric Vehicle Batteries courthousenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from courthousenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Like many global automakers who have been stung by computer chip and other supply chain shortages, Ford wants to make sure it has enough batteries for what it says is an accelerating transition away from internal combustion engines.
Hau Thai-Tang, the company’s chief product and operations officer, said electric vehicles are moving from early adopters to an early majority as new models come out, and Ford wants to lead the transition.
“We now see that the market is going to develop very quickly, and we will have sufficient scale to justify having greater levels of integration,” he said. “We will no longer take an approach of hedging our bets and planning around the uncertainty of how fast that will play out.”
DETROIT Saying that it wants to control the key technology for electric vehicles, Ford plans to open a battery development centre near Detroit by the end of next year. The company said the 200,000-square-foot facility will have equipment to design, test and even do small-scale manufacturing of battery cells and packs. The $185 million lab also will develop electronic controls and other items as Ford moves more of the process in-house. Eventually the company wants to do large-scale manufacturing of its own batteries globally, a task now performed by supply companies. Like many global automakers who have been stung by computer chip and other supply chain shortages, Ford wants to make sure it has enough batteries for what it says is an accelerating transition away from internal combustion engines.
Ford to develop, produce its own electric vehicle batteries at Metro Detroit plant
By TOM KRISHER article
DETROIT (AP) - Saying that it wants to control the key technology for electric vehicles, Ford plans to open a battery development center near Detroit by the end of next year.
The company said the 200,000-square-foot facility will have equipment to design, test and even do small-scale manufacturing of battery cells and packs. The lab also will develop electronic controls and other items as Ford moves more of the process in-house.
Eventually the company wants to do large-scale manufacturing of its own batteries globally, a task now performed by supply companies.
This morning in metals news: the US steel sector’s capacity utilization rate hit 78.4% last week; meanwhile,
Ford announced plans to invest $300 million to build a new light commercial vehicle in Romania; and, lastly, the United States International Trade Commission held a five-year sunset review regarding imports of prestressed concrete steel wire strand from China.
Volatility is the name of the game. Do you have a steel buying strategy that can handle the ups and downs?
US steel capacity utilization reaches 78.4%
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The US steel sector reached a capacity utilization rate of 78.4% for the week ending April 24, the American Iron and Steel Institute reported.