MARSHALL, Michigan — Lisa Drake, Ford Motor Co.'s vice president of Technology Platform Programs and EV Systems, said the automaker is sticking behind its $3 billion investment in south-central Michigan for a new battery plant that's 60% completed, after the company's leaders said a proposed federal budget could put the site "in peril."

Executive Chairman Bill Ford made the remark regarding the "One Big, Beautiful Bill" being considered in Congress during last month's Mackinac Policy Conference. Legislation passed by the House would make the Marshall plant ineligible for production tax credits for electric vehicle battery manufacturing because Ford is licensing battery technology from a Chinese company. The latest language in a Senate version under discussion is "more workable," spokesperson Robyn Jackson said, and Drake emphasized how the plant supports the Trump administration's goal of increasing U.S. manufacturing.

"When we invest, we stick behind our investments," Drake said during a tour of the construction site for the plant that is expected to create 1,700 jobs after it begins production next year. "We invested in Tennessee, we invested in Kentucky, and we invested here, and in all those cases, we still want to do business in those communities, and we're still supporting those communities, whether we pause the hiring. But we're keeping the training moving.

"We still believe that's the end game," she continued. "And Ford is a company that will weather the storm until we get there, but there's a great opportunity to help, not only Ford, but all of the auto sector, stay in this game and keep these battery jobs here. And now it's going to just be up to the administration."

The production tax credits offer $35 per kilowatt hour for battery cells and $10 per kilowatt hour for battery modules or pack assembly. The Marshall plant's capacity is 20 gigawatt hours per year.

Ford is licensing from China-based Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. the product design and manufacturing process for lithium-iron-phosphate batteries. That technology was developed in the United States but industrialized in China and is less expensive than batteries found in most EVs on the road in the United States today.

The manufacturing in Marshall, however, will be done completely by Ford, which wholly owns the Michigan plant. The alternative, Ford leaders have said, is to source LFP batteries manufactured in China, which competitors like Tesla Inc. and General Motors Co. have done or plan to do.

"It probably would have taken us a decade to catch up and have LFP technology on our own, hundreds of millions (of dollars), time, and we didn't have time," Drake said. "It's like where do you want to spend the investment? If Ford has capital, we want to spend our investment creating the manufacturing jobs here. Our powerhouse, our capability is building industrial sites, hiring and training American workers, and manufacturing at scale with quality, and hopefully, beating others to the market."

She added that Ford's other battery partners like SK On Ltd. and LG Energy Solution didn't have an LFP prismatic cell design — like the one Ford will be making — a couple of years ago when Ford decided to move forward with licensing CATL's technology for Marshall

LGES is producing LFP batteries for energy storage applications at its plant in west Michigan's Holland a little more than an hour and a half from Marshall.

Bill Ford had characterized making Ford's plant ineligible for the production tax credits when it invested expecting to use them as "unfair." Drake said the credits would start to tail off at the end of the decade.

"But while EV adoption is low," she said, "it's really important to have those, because we don't want to back off on scaling, on training, on hiring, and these are very good-paying jobs in an industry that we need to be competitive in the future."

Having the plant up and running sooner also helps to build out the LFP supply chain and allow for advancement of the technology here in the United States over China, where all of that is centered today.

"You can build LFP without Chinese critical minerals, and you can do it and not have foreign entity of concern involvement," Drake said. "It's very, very difficult to do, but our supply chain team at Ford, when we embarked on this effort, went and did it."

That offers security for the production in Marshall, she added. Ford is developing battery technology at its ion park in Romulus, but it is mostly focused on lithium-manganese-rich batteries that fall in cost and energy density between LFP and traditional nickel-manganese-cobalt EV batteries. Marshall could produce batteries with these other chemistries, but it wasn't designed for that, and would be expensive to convert, Drake said.

Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of market research at automotive communications firm Telemetry Group, said LFP compared to traditional NMC EV batteries is about 30-40% less expensive per kilowatt hour. That's why LFP overwhelmingly represents a majority of EVs in China, the world's largest EV market.

"Every LFP plant we have in North America is critical," Abuelsamid said. "LFP offers huge cost advantages that are key to increasing EV sales."

Ford's decision to license technology from a Chinese company has drawn criticism from Republican lawmakers and some local residents, who also have expressed concerns about the impact of the plant on the community and the environment.

"The community is excited about the job opportunities," said Scott Davis, CEO of BlueOval Battery Michigan LLC, who is an 18-year resident of Marshall. He emphasized that employees have volunteered, serve on local boards and are involved in the community in which they live.

The plant also is a boon for Marshall, Calhoun County and the area stretching to Battle Creek, Kalamazoo and Jackson, Davis said. Over the years, the area has lost 2,000 jobs from State Farm Insurance, Lear Corp., Eaton Corp. plc and Campbell's Co., said Jim Durian, CEO of the Marshall Area Economic Development Alliance.

The city is expecting more than $2 million in tax revenue from the 500-acre Michigan BlueOval Battery Park. Since Ford's investment announcement, the area has attracted two new hotels and 1,300 housing units.

"We are working on keeping the project moving forward," he said. "It's a huge boost for Marshall and replenishing the jobs lost."

Ford already is producing "C-sample cells" of the LFP batteries at an equipment supplier location offsite from the 20-gigawatt-hour plant in Marshall. These are the last prototype battery cells before production and soon will be used to confirm design sign-offs in the company's next-generation EVs, for which the batteries being made in Marshall are designated. Ford has said it next will launch a new electric commercial van in 2026 and midsize and full-size electric trucks in 2027.

Drake said the production from the Marshall plant is designated for the EVs, but if there is additional capacity, Ford could look at other applications like energy storage.

Training employees and producing the C-sample cells speeds up the commissioning process once the equipment arrives at the new plant. That equipment is on boats shipping from China, Drake said.

In addition to 1,800 construction and trades workers building the plant, there are about 100 salaried employees already working for Ford in Marshall. Hiring of hourly manufacturing workers will happen closer to production launch.

Because the plant is highly automated, those roles largely will involve operating equipment and using computer screens to monitor quality, process, speed and output, Davis said. They don't necessarily require a college degree, but some kind of training will be needed, and BlueOval has a relationship with Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek.

Pay and benefits haven't been shared but will be "competitive to the local market," spokesperson Jessica Enoch said. Ford in its 2023 contract with the United Auto Workers agreed it would recognize the union in representing its workers at the plant following a majority card check instead of a National Labor Relations Board election.

Ford broke ground on the greenfield site for the nearly 1-mile-long, 2-million-square-foot facility in March 2023. The property previously had been mostly for agricultural use. Steel began being erected in January 2024 and was completed by the end of the year. The plant was enclosed in March of this year.

Once Ford finishes installing the manufacturing equipment in a couple of months, it will starts bringing areas of the plant to "clean room" status, which is stricter than a vehicle paint shop and similar to specifications needed for a microchip fabrication facility, Davis said. Employees must wear a special suit and walk through an air shower to access the clean rooms to ensure the safety and quality of the battery cells. Large air-handling systems bring the environment down to 1-2% humidity.

At the west end of the plant is a battery pack facility. The design of the battery cells into packs that go into the vehicle is Ford-developed based on decades of experience with hybrids and EVs at facilities like Ford's Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti.

The plant takes up about a quarter of the 2,000-acre Marshall Area Jobs, Opportunity and Recreation campus. Another quarter is reserved for recreational use, including trails, a park, easement along the Kalamazoo River and stormwater drainage. MAEDA is working with engineering consulting firm Stantec and the state on a development and marketing plan for the rest of the 1,000 acres, Durian said, but no announcement is imminent.

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