TL;DRFord has launched Ford Energy, a $2 billion subsidiary that will manufacture grid-scale battery storage systems for data centres and utilities using CATL-licensed LFP technology at a repurposed Kentucky plant. It has already signed a five-year deal with EDF Power Solutions for up to 20 GWh.
Ford has launched Ford Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary that will manufacture large-scale battery energy storage systems for utilities, data centres, and industrial customers. The company has committed roughly $2 billion to the operation, which repurposes a Kentucky plant originally built for electric vehicle batteries.
The subsidiary is led by Lisa Drake, who reports directly to Ford vice chair John Lawler. It marks the clearest signal yet that Detroit’s legacy automakers see more immediate profit in powering the AI infrastructure boom than in making the cars that were supposed to justify their battery investments.
What Ford Energy builds
The flagship product is the DC Block, a standardised 20-foot containerised storage system built around 512-amp-hour lithium iron phosphate (LFP) prismatic cells. Each unit is rated at 5.45 megawatt-hours, and the technology is licensed from CATL, the Chinese battery giant that dominates global cell production.
