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On Monday September 25th, Ford Motor Co. announced it would be pausing the construction of a $3.5 billion EV battery plant in Marshall, Michigan claiming that the company wanted to halt construction until the factory can run competitively. The plant would have been run by a Ford subsidiary called Blue Oval Battery Park Michigan and was supposed to employ 2,500 workers to produce lower cost batteries for new electric vehicles. By 2026, Ford had planned for the plant to produce over 400,000 batteries for the production of new EVs. The timing of this The announcement coincides with the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike that started in mid-September against Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis for increased wages. The president of the UAW, Shawn Fain, claims that the pause on construction of the battery plant is a "shameful, barely-veiled threat by Ford to cut jobs” (Krisher, 2023). 

The long-term plans for the battery plant have still yet to be decided as there has been opposition to the factory's location as well as concerns about the involvement of a Chinese company with the plant. For this factory, Ford had planned to partner with China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) to use its expertise on lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, which is more cost effective than the nickel-cobalt-magnesium chemistry used in current EV batteries. However, the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress on August 16th, 2022 causes complications for the Ford EV battery plant. This is due to the Act's requirements to create and expand a US supply chain for EV. If Ford wants to take advantage of the $7,500 EV tax credit, its batteries cannot contain metal or other components from foreign countries. However, Ford claimed that “an overly expansive interpretation of this provision risks making the clean vehicle credit largely unavailable” (Shepardson, 2023).

Although Ford did not give an exact reason behind their decision to pause construction on the plant- whether that be due to the UAW strike, locals' concerns, or compliance with the Inflation Reduction Act- this situation at Ford raises questions about how automakers should go about manufacturing EVs and how car manufacturers will try to align their goals with the Inflation Reduction Act. It also can provide insight for automakers as they make decisions and investments in EV production in the future.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/ford-battery-factory-michigan-uaw-contract-talks-57f476b06c8249ce8158f62d6142e7cb.; https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-pauses-work-35-billion-battery-plant-michigan-2023-09-25/.