DETROIT – Ford Motor plans to speculate $185 million into a brand new battery lab as a step towards manufacturing its personal battery cells for electrical autos, the corporate introduced Tuesday.

The funds will go towards setting up Ford Ion Park, a “pilot facility” for manufacturing that is anticipated to open by the top of subsequent yr exterior of Detroit. The deliberate 200,000-square-foot lab is designed to speed up improvement of the applied sciences as the corporate plans to “finally manufacture” new battery cells and batteries, based on Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s chief product platform and operations officer.

Ford declined to debate a timeline for producing battery cells internally. The corporate at present purchases cells from suppliers comparable to South Korea-based SK Innovation.

Ford’s new facility is not going to be a full battery cell manufacturing facility like Tesla has or General Motors has introduced as a part of $4.6 billion investments in two U.S. battery cell manufacturing vegetation with LG Power Resolution.

Thai-Tang stated Ford believes it nonetheless is smart to buy the cells from suppliers till EVs change into extra mainstream. EVs represented solely about 2% of U.S. car registrations final yr, based on IHS Markit.

“We need to give Ford the pliability and optionality to finally vertically combine and that was one of many drivers behind the creation of this battery heart of excellence in Ford Ion Park,” Thai-Tang informed reporters throughout a media briefing Tuesday. “It is actually for us to develop that experience and competency in home, and provides us that flexibility sooner or later.”

Thai-Tang stated Ford will give attention to “advancing” the next-generation of lithium-ion batteries which can be used right this moment. The corporate can also be trying into solid-state lithium metallic batteries thought-about safer and higher than the cells in the marketplace now. He stated Ford plans to take action by inner work in addition to collaborations.

Ford is hiring 150 individuals for Ion Park and has already introduced on some workers.

The funding and hiring comes after Ford put $100 million into a brand new battery benchmarking and check lab. The corporate stated it opened the power final yr in Allen Park, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The 2 investments add to Ford’s plans to put $22 billion into vehicle electrification from 2016 by 2025.

Ford’s first new EV known as the Mustang Mach-E launched within the U.S. on the finish of final yr. The corporate expects to observe it with an all-electric Ford Transit van later this yr and an EV model of the Ford F-150 pickup by mid-2022

Ford’s plan to fabricate battery cells comes six months after new Ford CEO Jim Farley stated the automaker was “absolutely” interested in producing its personal batteries. Farley modified the course set by his predecessor, Jim Hackett, who had stated the automaker noticed “no benefit” in doing so. Farley succeeded Hackett on Oct. 1.

Ford’s announcement comes a day earlier than the corporate is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings.

Shares of Ford are up by about 60% since Farley grew to become CEO, together with 40% in 2021. The corporate’s market cap is greater than $48 billion.