Ford Motor has reversed course and is now thinking about making its own battery cells as sales volumes of electric vehicles increase around the world, the automaker’s top executive said on Friday.
“We are discussing (battery) cell manufacturing,” Ford’s CEO Jim Farley said Friday at the Reuters Automotive Summit teleconference. “I think that’s natural as (EV) volume grows.”
In Jully, then-CEO Jim Hackett saw “no advantage” to the automaker in making its own battery cells.
Meanwhile, other automakers, such as General Motors and Tesla Inc, are spending billions of dollars in their own battery cell manufacturing plants to supplement production from suppliers.
Industry analysts have presented sometimes conflicting views on whether battery cell manufacturers will be able to keep up with the expected development in demand for electric vehicles in the coming years.
While Ford’s publicly announced electric vehicle production strategies so far have remained relatively modest, other automakers such as General Motors, Volkswagen have already set their targets of EV sales.
