June 18, 2026 - Ford Starts LFP Battery Production

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 18, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. 

Ford's BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall, Michigan, has been one of its most controversial factories in decades. The factory was originally planned to be built in Virginia, but the governor of that state pushed back because Ford was licensing production technology from China's CATL. After Ford announced it would instead put the plant in the rural Michigan community of Marshall, the largely conservative residents of the area also protested, but the facility moved forward. 

As Ford revamped its EV production plans over the last several years, the original plan for 40 GWh of capacity was scaled back to 20 GWh. The plant was meant to be one of the first in North America to produce lithium iron phosphate or LFP batteries for EVs at scale. Rather than produce these batteries for the now-discontinued F-150 Lightning and other EVs, Marshall's output is now dedicated to the new Universal EV platform that will spawn a $30,000 electric compact truck that is expected to go on sale in early 2027. 

LFP batteries are made from much more readily available materials than the nickel and cobalt used in many other EV batteries, and they have a longer lifespan and are safer. Despite having lower energy density than nickel-rich cells, the resistance to fires allows them to be packed more tightly into the pack, which enables them to match or exceed the overall capacity of the more expensive batteries. Ford will be taking advantage of this to produce the new UEVs with processes pioneered by Tesla and Chinese automakers that utilize the pack as the floor of the vehicle, along with large-scale castings to reduce cost. 

The Marshall plant is now employing over 500 people with a target of 800 by the end of 2026 and eventually 1,700. The plant is now undergoing production validation of all processes and is expected to start shipping finished battery packs to the Louisville assembly plant, where the UEVs will be produced in the coming months. 

Thanks for listening.