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Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

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Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#151

Post by justapassenger »

solarkraft wrote: post #99
bell-cot wrote: post #67

> Automotive giant Ford is shoring up its battery supply chain — partly by importing lower-cost, iron-based batteries popular in China — as it sprints to increase electric vehicle production. Old geezer's perspective: Back in its heyday, Ford Motor was one of the most vertically integrated (large manufacturing) companies in the world. They owned and operated their own fleet of ore carriers (cargo ships), to haul iron…

> Current-day Ford Motor having to go begging to China - for a major, iron-based component needed to produce more cars - that is laughable, and beyond pathetic. They're lucky China is answering. They're incredibly late to the EV game; considering that they're doing remarkably well.

Incredibly late? EV are still tiny % of global sales. And compared to what some EV startups want people to think, building good EV isn’t that hard for traditional OEMs, once company commits to it. F150 and MachE are very good EVs.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#152

Post by criley2 »

bell-cot wrote: post #67

> Automotive giant Ford is shoring up its battery supply chain — partly by importing lower-cost, iron-based batteries popular in China — as it sprints to increase electric vehicle production. Old geezer's perspective: Back in its heyday, Ford Motor was one of the most vertically integrated (large manufacturing) companies in the world. They owned and operated their own fleet of ore carriers (cargo ships), to haul iron…

What a shocking final sentence!!

"Current-day Ford Motor having to go begging to China - for a major, iron-based component needed to produce more cars - that is laughable, and beyond pathetic. In a dark, miserable sort of way, if you care about America or its future."

I could not have summarized it more differently. Vertical integration and monopolies are absolutely terrible in many ways. Globalization and inter-reliance are very good in many ways! The ideal system for everyone (workers, buyers, the business itself, the society it resides in, and the world itself) is probably a healthy middle point.

I'll go so far as to say this: if the US did not inter-rely on China over the past 30 years since they opened up their markets, with multi-national US corporations beginning to rely on various Chinese resources or products, then the US would be at a hot or cold war with China right now, just like they were with the USSR a generation ago.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#153

Post by bell-cot »

dylan604 wrote: post #134
bell-cot wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond the political issues already noted... - "We must travel to the most-distant place in the world, and the only source of $Thing, which we cannot survive without!" That sounds great, if you're writing epic fantasy quest stories. If you're talking supply chain management... maybe there is something profoundly wrong with your company? - Even if the CCP would never dream of squeezing Ford's battery life-line...the b…

>My old World Atlas suggests that shipping by rail is probably not an option. Is that the same atlas that says there's not an option for rail from UK to France as well?

Great quip, but it's more complex. The Chunnel is delicate infrastructure, with neither a backup nor a short repair time if something bad happened. I have not examined their Dangerous/Forbidden Freight List for "bulk rechargeable batteries" - but such lists can change. OTOH, there are dense freight rail networks on both sides of the Channel, and similar for ports, shipping, etc.

Vs. you'd need to build a few thousand miles of freight RR in Siberia, Alaska, and other places "unfriendly to economical RR construction and operation" in order to ship from China to the US via rail.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#154

Post by gandalfian »

Following the story of a family who bought an eight year old ford ev. $11,000. Needs a new battery, $14,000 plus labour and isnt actually available because Ford have discontinue it. A bit scary. https://www.ntd.com/battery-replacement-of-familys-ev-ford-f...

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#155

Post by criley2 »

phtrivier wrote: post #95
cumshitpiss wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with trading with China?

China spent the last two years demonstrating that they're "fair weather partners" when it comes to trade. And winter is coming. So obviously it's not bad _per se_ to rely on China ; but if it's not possible to diversify sourcing, this is begging for a disaster next time whatever geopolitic hits the fan.

How did they spend two years demonstrating they are fair weather partners? Was it the part where they locked workers inside of factories producing goods for America to make sure that the Americans got their shipments in spite of the Covid-0 policy? Or was it how China is actually upholding most sanctions against Russia, despite giving less than 0 f's about Ukraine?

IMO the real disaster would be a total de-link between Chinese and American economies. Neither country can currently engage in any kind of meaningful hostilities while 10%+ of their economies are linked in trade. Trade prevents war because war would mean decimation of their economies and lead to likely depressions, although I suppose the results of Russia's invasion and how their economy handles de-linking will inform this logic going forward

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#156

Post by cmrdporcupine »

dylan604 wrote: post #132
solarkraft wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Current-day Ford Motor having to go begging to China - for a major, iron-based component needed to produce more cars - that is laughable, and beyond pathetic. They're lucky China is answering. They're incredibly late to the EV game; considering that they're doing remarkably well.

>They're incredibly late to the EV game; considering that they're doing remarkably well. When you're not the trailblazer, it's easy to make catch-up progress to those that went before you in much much less time. Why this is constantly a source of amazement is funny to me. By the time Ford got involved, the path was no longer a beaten down path, it was fully paved 8-lane highway. Instead trying to figure out how to ma…

All of this is true except for the part where no other manufacturer (other than Tesla) has a reliable source of batteries -- so they're subject to intense supply chain constraints that limit inventory drastically. And so they were unable to meet the consumer demand for EVs. Hence you simply can't even get a Ford F150 Lightning even though it looks like a great vehicle.

This all pre-dated the COVID related supply chain issues, BTW. Lack of battery supply is behind the lackluster inventory (and therefore sales) of all non-Tesla vehicles for over half a decade.

I say all this not as a Tesla fan, but as a GM electric vehicle owner. GM was unable to produce more then a few tens of thousands of Bolts a year -- not because consumers didn't want them, but because there was simply no way for them to get them from LG Chem. VW/Audi group has had the same issue. They're both not late to the game on EV tech or production, but very late to the game on battery production.

Being late to the game in this case has a huge cost. And various governments wasted time and money providing consumer subsidies for EV purchases thinking this would lead the market to magically "solve" the EV supply issue by increasing consumer demand when the issue that really needed solving was volume and cost of battery production.

If we were going to involve public dollars in getting EVs to market we should have invested massively in encouraging battery production. Some governments are waking up to this now at least.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#157

Post by dghughes »

bell-cot wrote: post #67

> Automotive giant Ford is shoring up its battery supply chain — partly by importing lower-cost, iron-based batteries popular in China — as it sprints to increase electric vehicle production. Old geezer's perspective: Back in its heyday, Ford Motor was one of the most vertically integrated (large manufacturing) companies in the world. They owned and operated their own fleet of ore carriers (cargo ships), to haul iron…

And if I recall correctly Ford was the only US vehicle manufacturer that did not request a bailout in 2008.

That was impressive at the time and it made Ford look like solid well-run company that planned ahead.

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#159

Post by smaudet »

smileysteve wrote: post #131
MerelyMortal wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electrolysis powered by nuclear energy seems very clean and green to me. With the added benefit of not requiring an overhaul of the electrical grid to be able to handle everyone charging their cars.

Instead of overhauling the electrical grid, gas stations just have to maintain cryogenic pressure tanks?

Exactly, my money would be on an inert storage format - if you could mass produce hydrogen and keep it around safely inert (with low energy cost to convert it back), EVs would be beat so bad in the long run it wouldn't even be funny...

EVs are nice in short term but battery issues like these illustrate their (should be obvious) shortcomings.

WRT to this battery technology, ironically the same sector being targeted by hydrogen might benefit, i.e. rail tech - if you stick a high number of cheap batteries onto a large, heavy motorcar, the energy differential is almost negligible as you make up for it in part through momentum, but also just scale (more passengers transported per watt, more charge available per trip).

Re: Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries

#160

Post by fallingknife »

acd wrote: post #12
adrianN wrote: post #5

How much room for improvement is left on the consumption side? Electric cars seem to require around 15-20kWh/100km. Can we get that below 10 for regular highway driving, say at 130km/h? What are the numbers for city driving like?

You can make a self driving truck/electric vehicle lane where the speed limit is 80km/h. Paint a green line in the middle of the ev-lane and it should make self driving more easy to implement. Reason for slower speed wind resistance is far less at 80km/h. Energy use is quadratic concerning speed. So make a movie streaming ev-lane. Also one could fit cars with rail gear and run them on rail tracks on the highway which…

If it's a self driving only lane, the speed limit should be increased, not decreased. Self driving on a highway where all the cars are self driving is already a solved problem.
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