Ford accelerates battery research & development

28 April 2021 | David Young

Ford new global battery centre of excellence

Ford accelerates battery research & development

Called Ford Ion Park, the centre will accelerate research and development of battery and battery cell technology – including future battery manufacturing.

"We're already scaling production of all-electric vehicles around the world as more customers experience and crave the fun-to-drive benefits of electric vehicles with zero emissions," said Hau Thai-Tang, Ford's chief product platform and operations officer. "Investing in more battery R&D ultimately will help us speed the process to deliver more, even better, lower cost EVs for customers over time."

The company is building on nearly two decades of battery expertise by centralizing a cross-functional team of 150 experts in battery technology development, research, manufacturing, planning, purchasing, quality and finance to help Ford more quickly develop and manufacture battery cells and batteries.

The Ford Ion Park team also is exploring better integration and innovation opportunities across all aspects of the value chain – from mines to recycling – working with all teams within Ford, including experts at Ford's new Battery Benchmarking and Test Laboratory, Ford Customer Service Division, plus key suppliers and partners.

"We are creating new tools and solutions we need for a carbon-free, affordable and better future," Thai-Tang said. "We are modernizing Ford's battery development and manufacturing capabilities so we can better control costs and production variables in-house and scale production around the world with speed and quality."

This world-class 200,000 sq ft learning lab will include pilot-scale equipment for electrode, cell and array design and manufacturing and will use state-of-the-art technology to pilot new manufacturing techniques that will allow Ford to quickly scale breakthrough battery cell designs with novel materials once the company vertically integrates battery cells and batteries.

Anand Sankaran will lead the Ford Ion Park team as its new director. A 30-year veteran of Ford, Sankaran brings to the new position decades of battery and electrification expertise – including his current role as the company's director of Electrified Systems Engineering, as a 1999 Henry Ford Technology Award winner for his electrification work at the Ford Research Lab and a product development leader who applied his research and technical innovations on key production vehicles, including the award-winning original Escape Hybrid, 2021 Mustang Mach-E and 2022 F-150 Hybrid.

The team will apply customer insights to optimise battery technologies that deliver the performance and capability truck, utility, commercial vehicle and fleet owners value most. That means creating distinct batteries and technologies to deliver meaningful towing and off-road capability for truck customers as well as stop-and-go driving efficiency for fleet operators in cities worldwide.

Ford's Battery Benchmarking and Test Laboratory, which opened late last year, has 150 test chambers and 325 channels for development work. Experts at the $100 million, 185,000 sq ft lab already have analysed more than 150 types of battery cells.

The state-of-the-art lab houses battery cell and pack test rooms, test benches and benchmarking facilities to support battery cell design validation, controls calibration, pack development and pilot battery pack projects with different chemistries. The lab team can replicate the performance of full-scale production batteries under extreme weather and customer use cases, speeding implementation in future vehicles.

In Europe, Ford is moving to an all-electric line-up by 2030, with its commercial vehicle range 100 percent zero-emissions capable – all-electric or plug-in hybrid – by 2024. Ford also is investing $1 billion in a new electric vehicle manufacturing centre in Cologne to build a high-volume all-electric passenger vehicle for European customers starting in 2023.