Ford CEO Farley Would Partner With Rivals On EV Batteries

February 20, 2024 10:47 am

In recent years, Ford has shown more of a willingness to work together with some of its rivals to share development costs on various components, a list that includes General Motors and its 10-speed automatic transmission as well as Volkswagen, which it entered into an expansive partnership agreement with back in 2020 on both traditional ICE and all-electric vehicle development. However, it seems as if The Blue Oval hasn’t ruled out partnering with those companies – and other rivals – to develop future EV batteries either, as Ford CEO Jim Farley revealed during the recent 2024 Wolfe Conference.

“We got a delay, but a lot of opportunities came up,” Farley said. “The battery companies have a lot of excess capacity. We don’t need to spend as much money on vertical integration. We can start having a competitive battery situation. We can go to common cylindrical cells. That could add a lot of leverage to our purchasing capability. Maybe we should do (that) with another OEM.”

This news doesn’t really come as a huge surprise given the extensive relationship Ford currently has with Volkswagen, which is only expected to grow and evolve moving forward. In fact, VW recently achieved a breakthrough in terms of its next-generation solid-state EV battery technology, which is particularly notable given the fact that 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.

In addition to the Explorer EV, Ford is set to launch a second crossover riding on VW’s MEB platform in the near future, and could also potentially use that architecture to underpin a fully-electric version of the Fiesta, too. However, while Ford recently chose to scale back its planned EV investments amid waning demand, Volkswagen has no such plans to do so, as it recently revealed.

We’ll have more on Ford’s EV strategy 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.