Lawmakers Challenge Ford and Chinese Battery Partner Over Forced Labor
A licensing agreement between Ford Motor and a major Chinese battery maker is facing scrutiny by Republican lawmakers, who say it could make an American automaker reliant on a company with links to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region.
In a letter sent to Ford on Thursday, the chairs of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Ways and Means Committee demanded more information about the agreement, including what they said was a plan by Ford to employ several hundred workers from China at a new battery factory in Michigan.
Ford announced in February that it planned to set up the $3.5 billion factory using technology from Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd., known as CATL, the world’s largest maker of batteries for electric vehicles. CATL produces about a third of electric vehicle batteries globally and supplies General Motors, Volkswagen, BMW, Tesla and other major automakers.
Ford has defended the collaboration, saying it will help diversify Ford’s supply chain and allow a battery that is less expensive and more durable than current alternatives to be made in the United States for the first time, rather than imported.