In the mid-1990s, a compound called lithium iron phosphate (LFP), the primary battery chemistry now used by CATL and most battery companies in China, was discovered by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin and commercialised a few years later by the start-up A123 Systems in Watertown, Massachusetts.
On a three-mile stretch of farmland in southwest Michigan, Ford Motor Co is building a battery factory. The technology Ford needs to make cheap, stable batteries to power electric vehicles will come from China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology, better known as CATL, the world’s biggest battery manufacturer.
By most measures, Ford’s deal with the Chinese giant is a coup for the state — it is getting a USUS$3.5 billion ($4.7 billion) investment in a 2.5 million sq ft factory, thousands of new jobs and the ability to produce enough batteries annually to power 400,000 electric vehicles when the plant opens in 2026. But for anyone who has been paying attention, it is a devastating moment of irony for the US: The deal could have been the other way around.
