Badger_Prof

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Remember, if Ford starts building a battery factory now, they need to start with the production of cells that are state of the art in 3-4 years from now. In 5 years, I expect them to at least be working on a battery factory, if not running one.

For now, I'm fine having Ford focus on making the best car they can and let someone else do the battery development.
If Ford is doing well in the future and sees the value of owning a battery factory, they could also consider acquiring one from among the many that are now being built. Or, they could simply buy a big enough piece of a factory to gain priority on battery delivery.
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Billyk24

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QuantumScape.? Ever hear of it? https://quantumscape.com Bill Gates (yes the Microsoft founder) is one of the backers as is VW. Solid state batteries tackles the main hurdles in current battery technology: range, charge time, cost, and safety. QuantumScape batteries could double the current range of electric cars and eliminate the risk of thermal runways. 0-80%SOC in under 15 minutes! This is one reason Ford should hold off on sinking huge sums of funds in a battery plant that may become outdated several years after ground has been broken for it.
Ford has sunk money into a charging network (Ionity) along with VW and other car companies in the European market.
 

dbsb3233

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And let's not forget what Ford pointed to as the main reason... they just don't expect to be needing enough batteries to justify their own battery production anytime soon. Occum's Razor (maybe the simple and obvious reason they stated really is the main reason).

With only a few BEV models, some PHEV (small batteries), but still mostly ICE planned for the near future, they simply don't need their own gigafactory (and the added risk a heavy investment would bring with it).
 

jlauro

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Makes sense given that battery technology probably isn't stable yet, and so it would be a huge risk if the components or manufacturing process changes in a few years.

That said, I thought they were assembling their own battery packs for the mach e, just not the 288/376 cells that go into the battery.
 

ChasingCoral

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Makes sense given that battery technology probably isn't stable yet, and so it would be a huge risk if the components or manufacturing process changes in a few years.

That said, I thought they were assembling their own battery packs for the mach e, just not the 288/376 cells that go into the battery.
IIRC Ford builds the packs. Only the cells are provided.
 


Billyk24

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Ford has an investment in solidpower.com as does Bmw,BMW, and others. This USA group is based in Colorado and is in the solid state battery inventors. Company started in 2012. They also preach 0 to 80 % SOC in 15 minutes with almost 2x energy density. Solid state batteries are the future.
 

dbsb3233

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JoeDimwit

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My takeaway from this article is this… Ford says they need to sell 150,000 units per year to make a battery plant make sense. They have something over 110,000 orders for F-150’s, and the good lord only knows about Mach-E orders. I don’t see them getting the order to delivery time down any time soon based on what they’re saying.
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