Ford F-150 Lightning production has been off to an inauspicious start – as an issue involving about 100 pickups currently in customer’s hands preceded an ongoing production stoppage at the Ford River Rouge Electric Vehicle Center. As Ford Authority previously reported, a battery fire involving a pickup parked at the plant prompted the automaker to pause operations until it could figure out the problem. Now, according to CNBC, the plant will suspend production for another seven days, but the issue has apparently been solved.
According to a statement the publication obtained from Ford, battery supplier SK On suspended operations at its Atlanta, Georgia facility to make changes to its production line in light of the fire and will start shipping batteries soon. “The teams worked quickly to identify the root cause of the issue,” Ford said in a statement Friday. “We agree with SK’s recommended changes in their equipment and processes for SK’s cell production lines.” Ford also said that the it believes issue only impacts pickups currently at the plant and that no Lightning EVs at dealers or delivered to customers are impacted. The fire occurred on February 4th while the pickup was charging, although the automaker said that it was not caused by a charging fault.
The statement clarifies that the issue that caused the fire was not due to an assembly mishap but as a result of its construction, which had not been disclosed previously. SK On is presently a major partner for The Blue Oval and a major member of its EV battery master plan, as the manufacturer of the Lightning’s standard and extended range NCM batteries.
The Ford F-150 Lightning production pause is happening at the same time a software issue is currently impacting production of the 2023 Ford Escape and 2023 Lincoln Corsair, which prompted The Blue Oval to suspend operations at the Louisville Assembly plant through early March. Ford CEO Jim Farley has said quality is a major issue for the company and that fixes are being implemented to address longstanding problems.
We’ll have more on the Lightning soon, so subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford F-150 Lightning news, and for comprehensive Ford news coverage.
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From another source, “After putting out the fire on two of the trucks, the battery in the third began to burn, but was “un-extinguishable,”…A fire captain with expertise in EV technology was contacted for ideas on how to handle the situation…The fire department instructed Ford’s security to wet down the truck every 15 minutes, or if flames became visible, and maintain a person at the scene throughout the night….”
You go ahead and park that in your garage with your family sleeping in your house.
Nope.
Automotive fires are a part of the business:
Here Hyundai do not park:
nbcnews.
com/news/amp/rcna15445
Here new Ram fire do not park:
usatoday.
com/story/money/cars/2023/02/19/ram-trucks-heavy-duty-fire-recall/11300802002/
Don’t forget the Chevy Bolt fires too….
7 months, 7000 miles in my ’22 Lightning and loving it. Not a single complaint, not a single visit to the dealer, exceptional reliability, and awesome ride. Driving past numerous gas stations and smiling as I save $300/month on fuel ! $80/month to charge at home!
Fire departments are scrambling to learn how to work BEV fires safely…. and when pressed, will tell you they are not like any other fire they deal with.
The BEV apologists like to deflect the risk to ICE vehicles also catching fire… which is true.
The difference often ignored is ICE fires tend to be manufacturer and model specific.
BEV’s have a much higher correlation with only the battery system which is largely shared across all builds and models of BEV.
Its not here yet, but be prepared to pay an ‘enhanced risk’ premium if you own one of these…. something that does not exist for ICE because it is not a statically significant number.
There’s so much nonsense in this I really wonder if you’ve broken into Steve’s big idiot gas.
“The difference often ignored is ICE fires tend to be manufacturer and model specific.”
So much for coherence. Because, what does this even mean?
“BEV’s have a much higher correlation with only the battery system which is largely shared across all builds and models of BEV.”
So much for the commonality argument: Ford literally has several different BEV architectures, battery designs and suppliers.
Ok.. your opinion.
You seem to completely ignore the fact battery fires are much more difficult (read dangerous)… ask a few questions and do a little research maybe.
BEV fires are explosive in terms of their progression and appear to be incredibly random in their occurrences.
I get you want this evolution to BEV to succeed…… but you are not helping with that evolution due to your ‘off hand denials’.
The fire risks, real or imagined pose a greater challenge to the publics acceptance.
Finally, I believe Toyota went on record not so long ago making the case that BEV are a long way off……. this from one of the largest vehicle builders in the industry.
LoL are you just shedding your veneer now to go full K-street?
I’ve not denied anything.
I’m only refuting the bad faith BS of the K-street bad faith FUDster tag team.
Finally, you joined them with your “I believe Toyota…” hogwash.
You know that is hogwash because you’ve seen my links to Toyota’s new CEO Mr Sato’s recent news conference where he stated Toyota was now going to embrace a “BEV-first mentality.m” which I post every time someone like you makes that bogus claim.
Given you are also pushing the “long way to go” lie, I wonder are you also Tricky Mickey?
Wow, all the articles about Ford’s lack of quality keep piling up. Farley needs to go. He needs to drop his EV pipe dreams and put those resources into righting the company
Another K-street Alert: MARKUS is one of Big Oil’s the new troll tag team FUDster handles spouting old bad faith scripted anti-BEV disinfo.
Seems they are dropping their FUD in little rabbit size pellets.
LoL at how he turns the virtue of a company doing quality control things into a reason to not buy an EV.
Their conclusion of pushing the Farley has to go trope is because he has actually pointed many many things in the direction of success and good things are gathering momentum.
All of which is bad for Big Oil and laggard incumbent ICE OEMs.