After seeing huge interest in the F-150 Lightning, Ford believes it can become the second largest manufacturers of electric vehicles in the world. And it plans to do so within the next two years.
To achieve this goal, Ford will need to produce around 600,000 EVs per year. In the US, retail for the F-150 Lightning all electric ute is fast approaching 200,000, says Lisa Drake, Ford North America’s North America COO.
Speaking at an investor conference recently, Drake said Ford is working to create more vertical integration at its plants. This would mean that the existing factories currently building parts for combustion vehicles, will also be able to build parts for EVs.
“We haven’t used ‘vertical integration in this industry in a long time,” says Drake, but “you’re going to hear it a lot more.”
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Darren Palmer, Ford’s general manager of electric vehicles, says that a big barrier of people buying an electric vehicle is the price. He says that removing the price barrier is crucial to enticing buyers.
Meanwhile, in order to fulfil its battery requirements, Ford is working with five battery suppliers globally. These suppliers will help Ford develop and produce up to 240 gigawatt-hours of production capacity globally by 2030.
Ford is also looking at additional ways to reduce costs, such as looking at new cell chemistries and cell-to-pack structural batteries. And through that, Ford expects to get battery prices down to $80 per kilowatt-hour at the battery pack level well before the end of the decade, according to Drake.
Ford, along with BMW, has also invested in Colorado’s Solid Power to develop solid-state batteries. This technology is intended to be safer and more power-dense than current generation batteries. This will help extend ranges and shorten charging times.