Ford announced Monday that the plant near Marshall, Michigan, will employ 2,500 people. The plant is scheduled to open in 2026 and will produce enough batteries to power 400,000 electric vehicles per year.

Ford Motor Company is investing $3.5 billion in an electric-vehicle battery plant in southwest Michigan, which will use technology and support from a Chinese battery manufacturer that has sparked political controversy.

Ford said Monday that the factory near Marshall, Michigan, will employ 2,500 people, confirming a Bloomberg report from February 10. The plant is scheduled to open in 2026 and will produce enough batteries to power 400,000 electric vehicles per year.

The battery know-how will be contracted from China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd, which will help set up the plant and employ workers there. Ford stated that it will own and operate the factory through a wholly owned subsidiary. CATL is the world's largest manufacturer of EV batteries.

“Ford has control — control over the manufacturing, control over the production, control over the workforce,” Lisa Drake, Ford’s vice president of EV industrialization, said in a briefing with reporters. “We’re licensing that technology from CATL.”

The agreement, aimed at securing tax breaks for the plant, has sparked outrage at a time of increased geopolitical tension between the US and China, most notably the uproar over a Chinese balloon flying over America. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin rejected his state's bid to host the factory, calling it a "Trojan horse" for the Chinese Communist Party.

“It’s very regrettable that Governor Youngkin had some misinformation,” Drake said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “We hope through today’s media announcement that it was very clear that Ford has control of the plant.”

It comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to meet with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi at a security conference later this week, according to Bloomberg, in their first face-to-face meeting since the balloon incident.

CATL personnel will assist with the installation of factory equipment used to manufacture the batteries, some of which will be imported from China, according to Drake. And some CATL employees will remain at the Michigan plant indefinitely because "we need their help," Drake said.

According to the United Auto Workers, the plant will create "good-paying union jobs."