Ford Partner VW Achieves Breakthrough On Next-Gen EV Battery

January 4, 2024 9:22 am

The partnership agreement that Ford and Volkswagen formed back in 2020 has thus far produced a number of shared models and resources, though many more are in the pipeline, too. Thus far, that list includes the Ford Explorer EV and another yet-to-be-revealed crossover riding on VW’s MEB platform, the Ford Ranger based VW Amarok, the Tourneo Connect, which is essentially a rebadged Volkswagen Caddy, the next-generation Ford Transit Connect, which will exist as a rebadged VW model itself, and the all-new Volkswagen Transporter, which will be based on the recently-revealed next-gen Ford Transit Custom and will be built alongside that model at the Ford Otosan Assembly Plant in Turkey. Soon, Ford may also benefit from VW’s next-gen EV battery tech, which just achieved a bit of a breakthrough in its development, according to PC Magazine.

This new solid state EV battery utilizes a 24-layer interior structure and was developed by a California-based company called QuantumScape, which provided a prototype to VW a few months ago. The automaker has been busy testing it ever since, and the results are incredibly promising – after 1,000 charging cycles, the battery retained 95 percent of its original capacity, which equates to around 300,000 miles of real-world driving.

“We are not aware of any other automotive-format lithium metal battery that has shown such high discharge energy retention over a comparable cycle count under similar conditions,” said Jagdeep Singh, Founder and CEO of QuantumScape.

This news is particularly notable not only as automakers like Ford continue to invest heavily in solid-state battery technology, but also because CEO Jim Farley recently stated that a delay pertaining to the Explorer EV’s launch stems from a desire “to wait for a new generation of Volkswagen battery technology to be available,” though it’s unlikely that Farley was referring to this particular EV battery tech, as it isn’t expected to be viable for automotive use for a few more years.

We’ll have more on this new EV battery tech soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for continuous 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.