Ford’s quest to vastly expand its EV business is currently centered around securing the raw materials it needs to build batteries at its new BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky, which is currently under construction. That operation – which consists of a parnership between Ford and its BlueOvalSK joint venture partner – SK On – will serve as the main driving force in the automaker’s EV push, though both companies are also investing in their own separate ventures as well. For The Blue Oval, that includes retooling the Oakville Assembly plant in Canada to produce the Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator EVs, though its EV ambitions in that country are set to expand beyond that effort with the construction of a new cathode factory there, according to The Korean Economic Daily.
Ford will reportedly team up with SK On and South Korean battery material producer EcoPro BM Co. to erect the $704 million dollar facility in Bécancour, Quebec after signing off on the deal later this year. The trio signed a letter of intent to do so back in July, and currently, plan on breaking ground at the site in the second half of 2023.
The new plant would produce cathode materials, which are key ingredients in lithium-ion batteries, for BlueOvalSK. It would be EcoPro BM Co.’s second non-domestic production facility, as it’s also in the process of building another cathode factory in Hungary, which is expected be operational in the second half of 2024. Building this new site in Canada would allow the company to take advantage of revised U.S. EV tax credits, which require that a certain percentage of critical materials used in EV batteries be sourced from America or its trade partners.
In total, EcoPro BM Co. plans to spend nearly two billion in both North America and Europe by 2026 to ramp up its production to 480,000 tons of cathode materials a year, which is enough to support the production of six million EVs.
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Comments
Can’t believe they chose Hungary for the European cathode plant.
Of course it be Quebec that got chosen. Canada’s French-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes sure that as much business as possible gets ‘incentivized’ to Quebec. Sad but true.