Ford E-Transit Will Not Receive LFP Battery Pack In Near Term

August 2, 2022 6:36 am

Earlier this month, Ford revealed its latest EV master plan that outlined what the automaker is doing to secure enough raw materials to meet its goal of producing 600,000 all-electric vehicles in 2023 and two million annually by 2026. Aside from casting a wide net in terms of suppliers, FoMoCo also announced that it will be utilizing lithium iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries in the Ford F-150 Lightning in early 2024, as well as the Ford Mustang Mach-E in 2023. However, the other current Blue Oval EV – the Ford E-Transit – apparently won’t be joining its stablemates in that regard any time soon.

“Although we haven’t announced E-Transit today, you’re correct, you can maybe see LFP on E-Transit but that’s not a part of the announcement today,” Lisa Drake, Ford’s vice president of EV Industrialization, said while speaking at a question and answer session related to the automaker’s EV announcement. “In terms of profitability, we know that the battery cost is where the war will be won in the short term, and by far, LFP chemistry will give you the biggest step function down in that material cost. Then the next step is controlling that value chain that we talked about. These are the most important steps we need to take first to control the material costs.”

LFP batteries offer up mostly pros and one particular con when compared to the lithium-ion units powering the majority of EVs these days. LFP batteries don’t use nickel or cobalt in their construction, and are generally cheaper, safer, and can be charged to 100 percent without worrying about speeding up battery degradation, though they’re also not as energy dense as lithium-ion batteries.

Though the Ford E-Transit currently dominates the admittedly small all-electric van segment in terms of sales, Ford apparently doesn’t need to swap its lithium-ion battery to an LFP unit to meet its goal of producing 150,000 units in 2023, a figure it shares with the F-150 Lightning, while FoMoCo also plans to build 270,000 Mach-Es and 30,000 units of a yet-to-be-revealed European crossover built on Volkswagen’s MEB platform.

We’ll have more on the E-Transit soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford Transit news and non-stop Ford news coverage.

By Brett Foote

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.