Ford in $4.5 billion deal for EV battery materials plant

Reuters | March 30, 2023 |

Rouge electric vehicle center. (Image: Ford Motor.)

US carmaker Ford has joined PT Vale Indonesia and China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt’s as their new partner in a $4.5 billion nickel processing plant in Indonesia, the companies said on Thursday.


The investment is Ford’s first in the Southeast Asian country and underscores growing appetite among automakers for raw materials used in producing electric vehicle (EV) batteries, which account for about 40% of a vehicle’s sticker price, aiming to cut costs and close the gap on EV market leader Tesla


Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest automaker, this month said that it would invest 180 billion euros ($196 billion) over five years in areas including battery production and the sourcing of raw materials.

Indonesia, which has the world’s biggest nickel reserves, has been trying to develop downstream industries for the metal, ultimately aiming to produce batteries and electric vehicles.

The proposed high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) plant will be located in Pomalaa in Southeast Sulawesi, where Vale operates a nickel mine.

Vale and Huayou began construction of the plant in November and commerciaoperation is expected to start in 2026.

Febriany Eddy, chief executive of Vale Indonesia, said the deal is unique in bringing the US automaker into an upstream nickel business.

She said that Vale has a 30% stake in the project, with the remainder being controlled by Ford and Huayou.

The companies did not say how much Ford will invest in the plant, which is expected to produce 120,000 tonnes per year of mixed hydroxide precipitate, a material extracted from nickel ore for use in EV batteries.

“Ford can help ensure that the nickel that we use in electric vehicle batteries is mined, produced within the same ESG standards as part of our business around the world,” Christopher Smith, Ford’s chief government affairs officer, said at the signing ceremony.

Indonesia’s government has banned exports of unprocessed nickel ore since 2020 to ensure supply for existing and potential investors while it also courts global EV makers such as Tesla and China’s BYD Group to invest in the country.

($1 = 0.9205 euros)

(By Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Martin Petty and David Goodman)

Mercedes-Benz is “able and willing” to invest capital in mining – CEO

Reuters | March 30, 2023 | 

Stock image.

Mercedes-Benz is willing to allocate capital to support or ramp up a mining business, chief executive Ola Kaellenius said on Thursday at the carmaker’s annual environmental, social and governance conference.


“We have fundamentally made the decision that if a deep sourcing opportunity presents itself down to the mine, we are able and willing to allocate capital to that,” Kaellenius said.


The company had opened up a raw materials office in Canada to further discussions in the region on sourcing raw materials following the signature of a battery material cooperation agreement with the Canadian government last year, chief technology officer Markus Schaefer added.

(By Victoria Waldersee; Editing by Friederike Heine)