As Ford Authority reported last year, some Blue Oval EVs will soon trade their lithium-ion battery packs for lithium-iron phosphate units, which 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. However, it was previously unclear just how much cheaper Ford’s LFP batteries will be when compared to traditional lithium-ion units, at least until now.
“The battery process, later this year, next year, we’re launching LFP onto the Mustang Mach-E, and the the Lightning,” said Ford Pro CEO Ted Cannis while speaking at the recent Evercore Utility Conference. “Roughly 10-to-15 percent less cost. Not as dense chemistry, but allows for more more durability, more cycles, so it looks like a good solution for those customers who are not looking for all the density and longer range of NCM. That’s a big opportunity.”
As Ford Authority previously reported, the Ford Mustang Mach-E is set to receive LFP battery packs starting in 2023, while the Ford F-150 Lightning will follow in 2024. FoMoCo’s other EV – the E-Transit – will continue to be sold with a lithium-ion battery pack for the foreseeable future, however. The automaker plans on producing 270,000 Mach-E crossovers and 150,000 F-150 Lightning pickups in 2023, and this particular switch will reportedly enable it to reach that goal. Additionally, the automaker expects to continue utilizing LFP packs into the next decade.
The lower costs of LFP batteries makes them quite attractive in light of the skyrocketing costs of raw materials over the past several months, including lithium, which tripled in price over the past year to reach a new all-time high last October. As a result, the F-150 Lightning has received multiple price increases over that same time frame, as has the Mustang Mach-E.
We’ll have more on Ford’s decision to switch to LFP batteries soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for ongoing Ford news coverage.
Comments
10 percent cheaper? Does that mean $5000 price reduction?
Ok, more bologna for us to digest. If you have been following any of the EV space, you’ll know that the CEO’s and others boast about the 30% labor savings in the assy process. I am careful to realize that labor is just one component of the entire car mfg process. So give us 15% labor save and let that flow to bottom line. Instead, what has happened? Price has gone up. Now we are hearing a new battery type will save 10% (of battery component cost), OK.. how about slipping us 5% of that- give us something we can see. At the end of the day, this electric vehicle thing is a big science experiment with the consumer as the testing ground.
That’s not how things work. You should know better than that.
You are cherry picking savings but not accounting for other expense increases.
You are taking forward looking projections and trying to apply them now.
Your approach is not realistic or fair.
The savings will come as companies reach scale, the offerings and market start to become saturated, and then start to compete on price again.
We are not at that point for probably 5 years, although Tesla desperate to grow and hold share, has begun pulling price competition forward.
That means a 10% markup on price, doesn’t it?
Right now Tesla offers the cheapest replacement cost for a new battery….$22,500. And it needs to be replaced by at least the 10 year mark. No thank you. Not a surprise EVs are failing.
Oh, Jackson is a new mini me bot here to amp up Randy’s comment.
Pray tell dear Jackson, why are you claiming the batteries need to be replaced at the 10 year mark? (So the car has 70% of original capacity.
And so what anyway? It’s a 10 year old car, with 150k miles in the clock, so it’s pretty likely on its second owner and used as a second car. (And even if not and the owner wants to keep it, that battery replacement looks pretty cheap in comparison to a brand new car of the same class.)
Maybe people are pining for the “good old days” of the 50s and 60s, where your ICE needed an oil change every 2,000 miles; a tune up every 5,000; piston rings and valves every 20,000? Back then, 50,000 miles was end-of-life for most cars. (Not necessarily just because of the ICE, but the body rusted away, doors wouldn’t close and the suspension fell off.) People would complain about having to spend $1000 to replace the engine on their $2,000 car after only 8 years.
I don’t disagree that battery life and range anxiety are a real part of owning an EV. But history shows that technology marches on and these problems will be either be solved, or supplanted with another technology. For example, in 1955 in the USA, steam locomotives were still being built. By 1965, 99% of the in-service steam locomotives had been replaced by diesel electrics. Steam was gone in 10 years, after 150 years of common usage . (25% diesel thermal efficiency versus 5% for steam was a BIG carrot and made the upheaval worthwhile.)
BEVs, or other things, are coming, boys and girls. Tough to swallow, I know. But things are going to change in the personal transportation business. Embrace the fun to watch it happen.
Great comment OFG!
LoL, folks who probably never lived it simplistically pining for the good old days that never really were.
I loved using a feeler gauge to check the plugs and set points, (as part of a proper PP&C change) and painting the timing mark and the edges adjacent to the slot in the torsional vibration damper white and then using my timing light to set spark advance on my folks’ cars in the 70’s.
Enjoyed using the feelers to set the valves on the 1.6L Kent in my ‘80 Fiesta too.
But except for my old Pony car, I wouldn’t want to do those or the oil changes any more.
If I never see battery tray or terminal corrosion from a Pb acid battery again it will be too soon. The thunk of a tired cardan joint or slow shift of a tired slush box won’t be missed either.
Great analogy of steam to dieselification. Same held true for the demise of transatlantic ocean liners (briefly) by 4 engine radial airliners like the Constellation which were even more quickly supplanted in the ocean liner coup by the jet 707.
Rail purists decried the end of steam, as some sailors decried steam replacing the sail, as purists and snobs later decried the death of Blue Riband class ships at the hands of affordable democratized commercial air travel.
Obviously the purists and the snobs after all their pearl clutching and tut tutting, abandoning”civilized transport” and chose to fly over the ocean, else we’d still have that mode of crossing.
In many ways they just remind me of my grandmother born at the end of the 19th C, who decried was an early adopter of the Model T m, but in late life decried the touch tone phone and microwaves until she got one of each.
While I am always a little skeptical about claimed savings in advance, the fact remains that builders will continue to find ways/means to reduce costs…. weather or not they are passed on to the customer is the fuzzy part. More competition and more offerings are the only real hedge against soring retail prices.
Agreed, what’s sure is that even though ICE is at the end of its development potential, BEV is essentially at the beginning.
With all the investment and development going into cell design and chemistry as well as motor design, we will see significant improvements in the short and mid term (not unlike the first 1/2 century of ICE).
As OEMs scale their design and manufacturing investments and output a competition for technical edge (to our benefit) will increase and as scale effects are achieved price competition will kick in (to our even greater benefit).
Sure,shorten the range. I guess Ford hasn’t heard the term,”range anxiety” before. It’s a major stumbling block for many potential buyers.