Big Automakers Are Underplaying Surprising News: LFP Batteries Are Back
In a much-overlooked shift, Ford, VW and Tesla have rushed to an old chemistry
Last week, Ford CEO Jim Farley made a big splash with his plans to go digital, mine data, and leverage connectivity. Ford was going to “lead the electric revolution” with an “ion boost” and reduce its battery costs by 40% by the middle of the decade, with more to come. Ford shares ended the week up 9%, and 70% for the year.
Buried in Farley’s presentation was a significant but almost unremarked-upon shift by the company: Some Ford electric vehicles, particularly those meant for construction and other punishing businesses, would spurn tried-and-true battery formulations relying on large proportions of nickel and cobalt. Instead, Ford would power its larger pickups and other vehicles with a long-ago discarded battery chemistry called LFP, short for lithium-iron-phosphate, that contains none of the usual metals.
The announcement came two months after Volkswagen made a similar disclosure: In March, its CEO, Herbert Diess, said the Germany automaker would use LFP for its cheaper, entry-level EVs. And last October, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was the first major EV-maker to go this direction, announcing that not his workhorse NCA batteries, but LFP would go…
