Ford announces joint venture with South Korea’s SK Innovation to produce own EV batteries

Ford recently announce its decision to go into a joint venture with SK Innovation of South Korea for the purpose of manufacturing their own EV (Electric Vehicle) batteries. 
After just introducing their F-150 Lightning pick-up truck, Ford announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding along with SK Innovation about the creation of the company called ‘BlueOvalSK’ through joint venture. 
Ford has an already existing relationship and affiliation with SK Innovation, where SK supplied batteries for their Mustang Mach-E SUVs. 
SK Innovations almost hampered their imports to the US by recently losing a trade secret dispute with its competitor LG Chem. 
Ford can now mostly avoid certain issues that may surface from overseas battery sourcing by entering into this joint venture and creating ‘BlueOvalSK’ to produce their own EV batteries in the US. 
Last month the company announced the launch of “Ford ION Park” in Southeast Michigan, where a team of 150 experts will work towards building longer lasting, faster chargeable, environment sustainable EV batteries. 
By 2030, Ford expects the annual demand for energy to increase to 140GWh in North America and to 240GWh worldwide.