On January 22, 2026, Representative Mike Johnson, Republican chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter to Ford Motor Company demanding detailed information about the automaker’s plan to retool its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center and Michigan Assembly Plant for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cell production. Under a licensing agreement signed in October 2025, Ford will use battery chemistry and manufacturing know-how from China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) to produce both LFP pouch cells for EVs and large-format modules for grid-scale energy storage. The facilities, which currently have combined nameplate capacity of 50 GWh per year, are slated to begin LFP cell output in late 2026. Lawmakers are pressing Ford for clarity on intellectual property safeguards, the percentage of U.S. content in licensed equipment, and the anticipated cost savings versus nickel-based chemistries, which Ford projects at 10% per kilowatt-hour.

Over the past month, 12 Wall Street brokerages have raised their 2026 adjusted EBITDA forecasts for Ford, lifting the consensus by 4.2% on average. Analysts now expect full-year automotive operating margin of 8.5%, up from 8.2% previously, driven by stronger truck and SUV pricing and early success of the Mustang Mach-E and E-Transit van lines. Several firms highlighted tight U.S. dealer inventories, down 12% year-over-year at the end of December, as a catalyst for sustained pricing discipline. Year-to-date, Ford shares have outperformed the S&P 500 by 6 percentage points, and trading volumes have risen 15% ahead of the company’s February 3 earnings release.

Effective immediately, Lisa Drake, previously vice president of EV Systems and Technology Platforms, has been named president of the newly formed Ford Energy division. Reporting to Vice Chair John Lawler, Drake will oversee the build-out of battery cell manufacturing, system assembly lines and sales channels for utility-scale and residential energy storage. Ford Energy’s first target is a 5 GWh pipeline of BESS contracts with U.S. utilities by 2027, leveraging Ford’s existing battery plants in Kentucky and Tennessee, which together delivered 26 GWh of EV cells in 2025. Drake’s team will draw on Ford’s network of 170,000 employees and its $7 billion annual procurement spend to secure domestic supply chains and drive down system-level costs by an estimated 15% through 2028.