Ford will produce self-produced power lithium-ion batteries or promote electrification for Baotu

From the large-scale cut into electrification of power lithium batteries, Ford, which has a century-old history and huge output, is likely to be the beginning of the 'collaboration effect'. A few days ago, according to Reuters and CNBC reports, the newly appointed Ford CEO Jim Farley (Jim Farley) said that the automaker is 'absolutely' interested in emulating Tesla and General Motors and processing power lithium batteries on its own. In September of this year, Ford’s former CEO Han Kate told investors that the battery strategy of imitating Tesla and achieving self-sufficiency by building its own battery factory 'has no merit.' Caijing.com Automobile tried to contact relevant persons at Ford (my country), but as of press time, no response has been received. Considering that Ford and Volkswagen have cooperated closely in the field of electrification in recent years, the latter has even invested heavily in building exclusive electric platforms. Some insiders believe that Ford’s entry of power lithium batteries may be intended to cooperate with Volkswagen and give play to the advantages of synergy. 'Promote electrification. Establish an electrification 'strategic alliance' with Volkswagen At the beginning of 2019, Ford and Volkswagen formally announced that the two parties will form a strategic alliance with a wide range of businesses. 'The new strategic alliance will help both parties share the cost in terms of vehicle architecture with unique features and technologies. , Thereby significantly improving business scale and operational efficiency.' Both companies are leaders in the light commercial vehicle market, and the two companies have also decided to launch commercial vehicle models and mid-size pickup trucks jointly developed for the global market as early as 2022. In addition, Ford and Volkswagen also signed a memorandum of cooperation to explore cooperation in the areas of autonomous driving, smart mobility services and electric vehicles. In June of this year, Ford and Volkswagen formally signed a strategic alliance agreement. According to the agreement, the two parties will launch jointly-developed commercial vehicles and mid-size pickup trucks in 2022, and plan to process 8 million vehicles during the cooperation period; Ford will build a purely dynamic model based on Volkswagen’s exclusive electrification platform MEB, with an estimated annual output of over 600,000 Vehicles. In the field of autonomous driving, as Volkswagen completes its capital injection into the autonomous driving platform company ArgoAI, the two giant car companies will cooperate with ArgoAI to develop autonomous driving models on a large scale. The advantages of Volkswagen's electrification are obvious. In April 2017, Ford Motor announced its my country's electrification strategy, announcing that it will launch a plug-in hybrid model Mondeo Energi and a pure electric SUV in the Chinese market; it plans to start processing electric vehicle powertrains in my country from 2020 System; plans to launch more electric car products in the Chinese market in 2025, and 70% of Ford brand models in China will be supplied with electric versions. So far, Mondeo Energi has only one version of the 2018 version in China, and it has already been discontinued. In August 2019, Ford launched the first EV in the territory of pure electric models in China, and the average monthly sales volume has been hovering around 4,000 vehicles so far. The assignment was not good. Although Ford's electrification in China was timely, the effect was minimal. In contrast, the Volkswagen Group in the alliance is quite radical in the process of electrification. Beginning in 2016, the Volkswagen Group announced the '2025' strategy, which regarded electrification as one of the core strategic cornerstones in the next 10 years, and announced in the following year that it would build an exclusive electric MEB platform for electric vehicles. In 2018, the Volkswagen Group announced that it will spend 44 billion euros (about 342.1 billion yuan) for the transformation and construction of factories, research and development and processing of electric vehicles, and investment in autonomous driving technology. Not only that, Volkswagen also established a joint venture with Jianghuai Automobile to establish JAC Volkswagen. Up to now, the Volkswagen Group has realized the capital increase and holding of Jianghuai Automobile, and promised to introduce more pure electric and hybrid vehicles for Jianghuai Volkswagen. Incoming battery processing may bring synergy effect. After the two pure electric models of ID.3 and ID.4 were announced, in May this year, Volkswagen entered Guoxuan High-tech with RMB 8 billion. According to the statistics of the Research Department of the Power Lithium Battery Application Branch, Guoxuan Hi-Tech ranked third with 3.31GWh installed capacity and 5.33% of the market share of the total installed power lithium battery capacity in my country in 2019. According to Bai Yiyang of the International Department of CMB, in general, the battery is the largest part of the cost of the new energy vehicle. Depending on the model, it accounts for 30-50% of the cost of the vehicle, and it also determines the performance of the vehicle. Therefore, some automakers, such as Tesla and GM, choose joint ventures or self-built battery plants. From a technical point of view, Guoxuan Hi-Tech has its own strength in Ru0026D and processing of lithium iron phosphate batteries. In terms of output, the power lithium battery supplied to the public in the Ningde era in 2019 was 1.1GWh, accounting for 88%. Volkswagen has formed an over-reliance on the power lithium battery of the Ningde era. As far as Ford is concerned, tying up Volkswagen’s shortcomings in batteries may be much less risky than spending 50 billion euros on an all-round layout. What's more, the power lithium battery market is still on the rise, and LG Chem and CATL have already made a lot of money. Self-built battery plants can solve Ford's own supply chain problems on the one hand, and can also strengthen the effect of collaboration with Volkswagen Group. Not only that, as the new CEO of Ford Motor said, electric vehicles have 40% fewer parts than fuel vehicles. With the increase in the share of electric vehicles, how to balance the number of jobs has become another major problem for century-old auto companies. Self-built factories to process batteries can reduce layoffs and convert redundant output. Interestingly, in the alliance between Ford and Volkswagen, Ford seems to have always been on the weak side. This time the 'reverse' proposed to process batteries, I wonder if it can supply another partner for Volkswagen's 'battery reserve' Guoxuan High-Tech in China. Disclaimer: Some pictures and content of articles published on this site are from the Internet. If there is any infringement, please contact to delete. Previous post: Poor economy hinders the recycling of power lithium-ion batteries