The future is being built west of Marshall
By MAGGIE LANOUE
Contributing Writer
Just west of Marshall, south of I-94, a massive factory is rising — BlueOval Battery Park Michigan. On a hot June morning, journalists from across the country gathered for a tour of the site before it becomes an ultra-clean, dust-controlled zone for battery production. This opportunity was possible because the building structure is nearly complete, but the delicate equipment had not yet arrived.
Reporters from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg, Crain’s Detroit, Axios, and local TV stations and newspapers attended.
Lisa Drake, Ford’s CFO for electric vehicles, highlighted the deeper strategy behind the Marshall battery plant. Instead of pouring hundreds of millions more into R&D, Ford chose to invest in large-scale American manufacturing – its core strength. The decision to license existing lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery technology wasn’t a compromise, she explained, but a way to move fast while creating high-tech jobs in Michigan. The technology, she said, originated in U.S. research labs decades ago but was commercialized overseas. Now, Ford is bringing it back and building the systems and workforce to match.
Lisa Drake, Ford’s VP of EV industrialization, explained the broader strategy. “The equipment is on boats coming over from China and going into a large warehouse. It will be all Ford equipment,” she said. “It is better to pay tariffs on the equipment and make the cells here. We will have full control of the production.”
Drake described how the facility’s design integrates every piece of equipment from the ground up. “You don’t just build a building and roll in the machinery,” she said. “The machinery designs the building.” Ford is using three types of battery chemistries across its EV lineup—a global first—and has already mapped out equipment and prototypes for Marshall. She also acknowledged the Inflation Reduction Act as a turning point, not only aligning incentives but prompting Ford to re-shore supply chains and regain control over battery production. For Ford, the mission is clear: invest in American innovation, jobs, and long-term energy leadership.
Filming inside the facility was not allowed. From this point on, the story would unfold through observation—boots on the ground, notebooks and audio recorders in hand. The journalists were directed toward vans, one for local journalists and another for state and national media. The first stop was the far west end of the mile-long building where the final battery packs, containing the cells, are packed and ready to go to the automobile manufacturing plants. This area is known as the back end. Currently there is no rail built, but there is a plan for that in case the need arises. Each of the rooms is set up to eliminate contamination, and there is a long hall called “the spine” through the center of the building, spanning from east to west.
Automated guided vehicles will run up and down this main corridor. The building is zoned east to west, with raw materials entering on the east end and the finished LFP battery cells exiting on the west.
Rooms are already designated for the anode and cathode processes. These are essential components of EV batteries. The journalists next visited the future main entry point for employees, on the south side of the structure. From there, support team workers will go upstairs to work, while the other workers will go to a room with lockers where they will shower and put on their work clothes to help maintain the clean room nature of the facilities.
Next, the bus took the media to the eastern front end of the structure, where the raw materials would be coming in, and the anodes and cathodes pieces of each cell would be created. Some of the other media in attendance, including Wall Street Journal writer Christopher Otts, wrote about the ongoing “difficulties obtaining vital magnets made with rare-earth elements, despite a deal the U.S. struck with China to ease export controls, a company executive said Monday.” These rare earth minerals include dysprosium and terbium.
According to Drake in her blog post titled “American Battery Plant Helps Power the Future of Electric Vehicles,” the project represents: “a historic step: An American automotive company is manufacturing — without relying on a foreign joint venture — LFP battery cells and battery packs domestically with American workers for American-assembled next-generation electric vehicles.”
She explained that parts of the plant would transition in stages to “clean room” status, supporting the production of C-sample cells—the final prototype phase before mass production. Ford, she emphasized, would fully own and operate the facility.
When Drake described the BlueOval Battery Michigan project as “the first plant where we’ll build prismatic LFP batteries at scale,” she was highlighting a turning point in EV battery manufacturing in the U.S.
Prismatic LFP batteries are named for their flat, rectangular shape. Unlike cylindrical cells (which resemble AA batteries), prismatic cells can be stacked tightly, making them well-suited for space-efficient vehicle battery packs.
Key advantages of LFP batteries include stable chemistry and long cycle life. These batteries can handle many charge/discharge cycles with minimal degradation. Their shape allows for fewer electrical connections, reducing complexity and improving reliability. While LFP batteries generally have a lower energy density than some nickel-based chemistries, they are more affordable and safer, making them ideal for mass-market EVs. Ford’s investment in Marshall aims to localize production of this next-generation battery format, using technology licensed from China’s CATL, a global battery leader.
A key uncertainty shadowing the plant is a sweeping federal budget bill officially titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which, if passed, would eliminate key clean-energy incentives before their current expiration date. Among them: the $7,500 federal tax credit for new electric vehicles and a $4,000 credit for used EVs—set to sunset Dec. 31, 2025, instead of under the existing law through 2032.
For Ford, these tax credits have been a crucial part of the economic justification of building this plant. The automaker has insisted it will continue regardless—but warns that removing subsidies could imperil the plant’s cost-competitiveness.
Additionally, the bill proposes new annual fees on EV owners—$250 for electric and $100 for hybrids—to fund road infrastructure, a move consumer advocates say contradicts the goal of promoting sustainable transportation.
This political backdrop adds tension to the day’s message of progress and local pride. As Ford executives push for American jobs, they’re navigating a legislative landscape that could reshape the industry’s financial foundation.
The Ford Blue Oval Plant is a model for future plants, and the best way to get feedback to fine-tune the operation is to get it running.
At a meeting spot outside near the end of the tour, Blue Oval CEO Scott Davis explained. “Ford has invested three billion dollars in the Marshall plant. The job pay and benefits will be competitive to the local market. It is not a union plant since there is no hired production team.”
The battery plant represents an important investment in the future of both Ford and Calhoun County. Whether it becomes a national model or another flashpoint in Marshall’s long civic history remains to be seen. But the project’s scale—and the conversations around it—are too large to ignore.
