There are a number of foreign media said “CATL and ford car battery cooperation project suddenly by the United States investigation”. In this regard, CATL secretary staff responded to China’s new Jingwei said, have paid attention to the news, and it (Ford Motor) project in normal progress.
Ford spokesman TR Reid said last week that the company is reviewing the matter, but declined to comment directly on the news.
Last week, two committees of the U.S. House of Representatives said on Friday that they are investigating the partnership between Ford Motor Co. and Chinese battery company CATL and Smith and Gallagher asked for a response by August 10 regarding Ford’s cooperation with this partnership.
Ford had to pay $3.5 billion to bring CATL to the United States to manufacture its batteries after the U.S. Congress passed a $430 billion inflation-cutting bill in 2022, which included a provision that would have barred future tax credits for electric vehicles if any of the battery components were manufactured or assembled by a “foreign-related entity”. to manufacture batteries in the United States.
We are concerned that this deal could be a simple outsourcing of Chinese battery technology, raw materials, and workforce components while collecting tax credits through licensing and funnelling money back to CATL,” the House letter reads. The project would appear to rely on employees from CATL to maintain long-term operations.”
In February, CATL and Ford announced a partnership in which they will work together to build a battery plant near Marshall, Michigan, aimed at producing new lithium iron phosphate batteries, with CATL licensing proprietary battery technology.
According to reports, the factory plans to invest $3.5 billion (Note: currently about 25.165 billion RMB, wholly owned by Ford), is expected to go into production in 2026, and will create at least 2,500 jobs in the United States. Ford said in May that it expects the plant’s annual output to reach about 42GWh when it goes into full production.
