Ford has unveiled they will be working with a South Korean company in order to mass develop their batteries for EV vehicles in the US.
This news comes following the official debut of the Ford F-150 lightning, the first Ford all electric pickup truck.
The joint venture with South Korea’s SK innovation will allow for Ford to manufacture batteries in bulk.
BlueOvalSK is the name of the new joint venture that’s been founded and the two companies have signed a memorandum of understanding.
forward already had a relationship in place with the company SK innovation, which currently supplies batteries for the Mustang Mach-E SUV.
Big plans are on the horizon though for the two companies to work together, Ford has long sought to gain more control over its supply chain of batteries.
The race is heating up and with so many car manufacturers now looking to offer electric vehicles Ford needs to outpace the competition.
SK innovation recently lost a trade secret dispute with LG Chem that could have hindered the imports to the US.
However, having development facilities in the US will mean no loss to SK innovation battery tech.
Ford announced last month that they were developing a new facility near Michigan for the bulk development of batteries.
There will be a team of around 150 experts working on ways to extend the battery life, the charging speed and the sustainability of the batteries.
By 2030 Ford has said they expect the annual energy demand forts vehicles to be up to 140 giga Watt hours annually in North America and up to 240 GWh globally.
Battery production is expected to grow internationally from 95.3GWh in 2020 to a whopping 410GWh in 2024.
Ford does have a fight on its hands with manufacturers such as Tesla, Volkswagen and General Motors both working excessively to ensure their battery development is top of the line
