May 21, 2021—Ford announced it will build two North American factories that will make batteries for roughly 600,000 EVs per year, the Detroit Free Press reported.
The deal is a joint venture with battery maker SK Innovation of Korea. Production of the batteries is expected to start by the middle of the decade.
Ford executives wouldn’t say whether the factory jobs would be union, setting up a potential confrontation between the companies and the United Auto Workers, which issued a statement saying Ford has a moral obligation to make sure plant workers are paid union wages.
The joint venture called BlueOvalSK is the start of Ford's plan to vertically integrate key parts of the electric vehicle supply chain. The companies say they have signed a memorandum of understanding, but details on the ownership structure and factory locations have yet to be worked out, the report said.
