One huge challenge faced by automakers right now is building an electric vehicle with both a low price and a long range. It seems that everyone is chasing this sort of “Goldilocks” EV, and Ford says it just made an important breakthrough in getting there.
The Blue Oval says it has produced some Lithium Manganese Rich (LMR) cells, which it expects to make a big splash sooner than you’d think.
This news comes to us from Charles Poon, Ford’s director of electrified propulsion engineering. In his post published to LinkedIn, he says:
Today marks a pivotal moment in Ford’s electrification journey and for the future of electric vehicles. After intense research and development at our state-of-the-art Battery Center of Excellence, Ion Park, I’m thrilled to share that the Ford team is delivering a game-changing battery chemistry: Lithium Manganese Rich (LMR).
Despite this apparently crucial breakthrough, Poon’s post doesn’t actually say a whole lot. LMR technology isn’t new, and Ford isn’t the only company working on it. Poon’s post is light details, never really saying exactly what the breakthrough was. Instead, Poon offers an promising prediction that Ford’s LMR chemistry could result in more affordable long-range EVs by the end of the decade.
Here’s the extent of the details revealed:
Enhanced Safety and Stability: Safety is paramount. We’ve engineered LMR to achieve a safety profile comparable to Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries, providing our customers with peace of mind.
Industry-Leading Energy Density: Our LMR boasts a higher energy density than even high-nickel batteries. This translates to greater range, allowing our customers to go further on a single charge and reducing range anxiety.
Unprecedented Cost Reduction: We’re targeting a cost significantly lower than current mid-nickel batteries. This breakthrough is critical to achieving true cost parity with gasoline vehicles and making electric vehicles accessible to more people.
As of right now, Ford uses batteries from CATL, LG Energy, SK On, and more. Ford also plans on producing batteries through joint ventures. To give an example of what that currently looks like, check out the Mustang Mach-E.
That EV uses nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries for its long-range models, while standard models get lithium iron phosphate batteries. Ford’s pitch here is that LMR will be about as safe as LFP, but cheaper than NCM. LMR chemistry also isn’t as cobalt-intensive, which is great for costs and human rights.
Poon says this is a homegrown effort developed within Ford Ion Park, the Romulus, Michigan-based home for Ford’s own battery efforts. The Ford LMR battery is also apparently more than just a lab experiment, as Ion Park is actually producing cells. However, a lot of work is left to do.
Sam Abuelsamid, contributor at The Autopian and vice president of market research at Telemetry Insights, spoke with the Detroit Free Press about this announcement. He correctly pointed out that lithium manganese batteries have been around for so long that the first-generation Chevrolet Volt used manganese spinel cathodes.
In its coverage, the Freep noted that battery experts have been solidly underwhelmed by the announcement. Ford has bolstered Poon’s announcement with a statement to Free Press:
Ford spokeswoman Emma Bergg clarified to the Free Press that while LMR has been researched by many companies, the technology poses challenges with voltage decay and gas generation. What is unique about the Ford LMR development is that the automaker is directly addressing these issues while “not sacrificing energy density,” Bergg wrote in an email.
Abuelsamid said manganese cells have had a short charge cycle life, and Ford’s comments imply that they may have found a way to address this, but Ford did not provide details on how.
Part of why this is such a big deal is that, depending on who you ask, an EV’s battery can be as much as over a third of the vehicle’s cost. This is part of why even “cheap” electric motorcycles are still so expensive, too. Thankfully, batteries do keep getting better with every generation.
So, Ford has apparently made a huge breakthrough, but nobody really knows exactly how big it is. As we reported back in early 2024, Ford is working on a small EV platform that’s due to arrive in 2027 or so. Could Ford’s small EV have this more affordable battery? That timeline sort of matches up with Poon’s post, but Ford isn’t giving any further details at this time. We’ll continue to watch this one to see where the breakthrough goes.
Interesting they point out cell decay in this style of battery, my 1st Gen Volt still does over 35 miles to a charge and is now over 12 years old.
Interesting.
Now make recharging 5 minutes.
N’ah, 15 minutes is fine, give it a decent range with a 15 – 20 min stop for lunch and to charge will road tripping and you’ll still get about 470 -ish for freeway range at 75mph. I can do that now in an EV6 or Ioniq 5 or 6
Or you’re charging overnight or at work so speed doesn’t matter that much.
I’m glad that works for you but if I can’t run it empty and refill it as quick as a gas truck, it’s not for me.
Not needed. To me, recharging to 80% within 30 min is more than fast enough.
You show up at a stop, plug in, go have a coffee, go to the washroom, then go back to the vehicle and carry on.
Essentially the fast charging we have now is fast enough. Faster would be nice, but is not necessary.
Not when you need to boot, scoot, and boogie.
We should start betting on who actually makes it to market first.
Lane 1 Toyota/Mercedes Solid-state Sodium Batteries
Lane 2 Ford LMN
Lane 3 Silicon Anode
Lane 4 Blade cells
Lane 5 Dry Coating
Lane 6 who else?
Right now I don’t have a clue
Ditch: hydrogen! Pick me teacher, I’m ever so smart!
What specifically are you referring to with Blade cells? BYD and Geely currently make long prismatic battery cells which they have named Blade. BYD is on their 2nd gen of them.
Damn sounds like we have a winner this was from a design paper last year calling out the blade design not the sandwich style currently used.
The Blade design was instrumental to BYD’s rise since 2020 has been in use since before that paper. Maybe we could change it to Blade cells in the US market?
Mazda SkyActiv-X
And Poon said LMR was just one of the techs Ford is working on.
I don’t expect them to provide details now or anytime in the foreseeable future since it’s a competitive advantage, but it’s an incredible failure of their initial press release that no useful information on the nature of the breakthrough was included. The bullet points they did include boil down to “It’s better, okay?”
This seems like the automotive version of vaporware.
“…Ford’s LMR chemistry could result in more affordable long-range EVs by the end of the decade.”
That’s more than four years away. It’s not like Ford is the only company or lab doing battery R&D. Better technologies/chemistry may be found. And if it’s by the Chinese, it will be likely be put into production faster.
Chuck Poon is a stellar porn name.
Interesting that Poon is making an announcement about battery cells that look like maxipads.
Their equipment is especially well suited to heavy discharge cycles.
Deeeep cycle… batteries.
Hmm he’s used to strange liquids?
From, the details:
Um, it’s referring to distance, so “farther” is more apt. Sure, “further” sounds fancier, but it is less correct and makes the detail releaser look like an idiot.
Interesting, could we discuss this farther?
GARRRR!!!!
Excellent point. However, have you considered substituting “YARRRR!!!” instead? Sure, GARRRR sounds fancier, but it is less Pirate sounding.
I believe both are acceptable and equally pirate-sounding.
Not if your first name is Teri…
Your language-based faith has no bearing here. Please adhere to Pirate code, lest ye be caught underhanded when Talk Like a Pirate day be upon us.
We’ve all had that moment where we are really proud of a project that’s not yet done but actually going right. I support this press release. We can celebrate a point somewhere between A and B.
That’s a lot of Poon!
It’s nuts!
Manganeeeeez nuts.
I need a puzzling image of an off-white powder in a sex-toy shaped transparent container to take new battery chemistry announcement seriously.
(If you know, you know)
Why would Ford want to copy Toyota?
You know!
If my last name was “Bergg” I would insist people pronoun both G’s.
Sid Bridge-gij
But interestingly Bergg would come out Berg-erg, or more sensibly Berg-⟨g⟩ (hard g)
I was more expecting “Berguh-guh” but I would be open to insisting anyone who tried was wrong and alternating pronunciations to keep people off of their game.
More energy density, lower cost, less prone to thermal runaway, less cobalt. Very glad to see all the numbers going in the right directions.
Yet they’ll slap an extra 500-1000lbs into the car making it more expensive, thus forcing them to build it into an SUV for profitability, giving less aerodynamics, oversized rims and likely knobby tires netting a range that is only 5% more than it could have been had they worried about the box they put it in as much as the batteries themselves.
Give me a rav4 sized 200 mile range EV for what a rav4 costs.
Fixed.
It’s a little annoying to have to lease to start, but this is basically the Ioniq 5.
“…which it expects to make a big splash sooner than you’d think.”
I’d really rather have a smaller Splash – like this:
https://www.theautopian.com/the-ford-ranger-splash-was-the-ultimate-90s-fun-party-truck/
I’d rather have an even smaller Splash, like this: https://www.story-cars.com/1988-ford-splash
I was obsessed with this concept car as a kid.