I had read that Ford and VW were partnering to build vehicles with VW leveraging Ford's experience in pickup trucks for a VW branded medium size pickup and Ford utilizing VWs experience in automobiles for Europe for Ford-branded products in Europe ...a little digging and I found the following:
June 10, 2020 – "Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen AG today signed agreements that expand their global alliance to meet rapidly evolving needs of their respective customers in Europe and other regions by leveraging complementary strengths in midsize pickup trucks and commercial and electric vehicles. Plans for the agreements were first announced by Ford and Volkswagen last July." that was in 2019, when they announced an "alliance".
The alliance will: Produce a medium pickup truck engineered and built by Ford, for sale by Volkswagen as the Amarok starting in 2022 within the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles lineup
And Ford will be using the MEB (electric architecture) for all vehicles it sells in Europe. Ford announced they will only sell EVs in Europe no later than 2030.
This was from March of 2023, "Ford and Volkswagen finalized their agreement to develop vehicles together nearly three years ago. The partnership is producing new models for the two, with Ford's VW-based electric crossover for Europe debuting in a few days. Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume told Automotive News Europe that its partnership with Ford is "intensifying."
In early 2023 Ford had announced that it was going to build several Lithium battery plants in the US using Chinese technology. They put that on hold in September and in November said they were going to build one small plant instead. They also scrapped a plant for Europe.
Maybe Ford will be a target for QS battery technology, not just in Europe but in the US? Maybe that's the Solid State (QS) plants the CEO just recently "hinted" at?
