While Paul Dabbar and DJ Nordquist are entitled to their opinions (“Ford’s pact with Chinese EV battery maker is a sucker punch to American taxpayers”), they need to be based on facts. Unfortunately, most of what they assert about the new electric-vehicle battery factory Ford
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plans to build in the United States is wrong. Nordquist and Dabbar write that the Michigan plant will be a joint venture with Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd.
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CATL will receive U.S. tax dollars, and CATL will run the plant. None of that is true. CATL isn’t investing anything and will have no ownership or control of the plant. CATL will get only a licensing fee from Ford for the right to use battery-chemistry technology that’s owned by and only available from CATL.
The authors suggest tha …