The Ford F-150 Lightning has faced its fair share of production woes in recent weeks, all of which started when a single pickup caught fire in a holding lot. The cause of that problem stemmed from its battery – which is supplied by SK On – and has since been identified and corrected, according to that company and The Blue Oval. 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning production is expected to restart at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center today, March 13th, while employees at that facility and the Rawsonville Components Plant – where the Lightning’s battery packs are assembled – will soon be back at work. Now, however, a total of 18 Ford F-150 Lightning models are bering recalled over this same battery issue, according to CNBC.
Ford initially said that no customer vehicles or dealer stock were believed to be affected by this battery cell issue, but it has since identified that a small handful of pickups that have already been delivered were in fact built with this particular defect. The improperly produced battery packs in these trucks – along with ones at the Rouge facility – were all built at SK On’s plant in Georgia during the same four-week period.
Ford hasn’t revealed exactly how many Lightning pickups were affected by this issue, including the quantity that were not delivered to customers or dealers following its discovery. Regardless, the automaker is “applying quality actions to already-produced vehicles with batteries built in this four-week window which we have been holding,” a Blue Oval spokesperson said.
Neither Ford nor SK On have revealed the precise cause of this problem either, but the forthcoming, official National Highway Transportation Administration (NHTSA) recall notice should shed some more light on this situation.
We’ll have more on the F-150 Lightning soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford F-Series news, Ford F-150 news, F-150 Lightning news, and non-stop Ford news coverage.
Comments
Well, I guess Ford’s statement that nobody had taken delivery of vehicles with this mysterious battery problem was complete BS.
Or was just ill-advisedly premature.
Just an update from todays NHTSA recall bulletin:
Fords explanation provided to NHTSA is below. TL:DR? Battery supplier had a manufacturing defect on one line that produced some batteries that were out of tolerance and had an anode contact a cathode causing a short when battery was nearing full charge. Ford did a CAT scan of the defective battery and could see the difference to unaffected units.
static.nhtsa.
gov/odi/rcl/2023/RMISC-23V168-6445.pdf
Oh, and “mysterious”? Oooh scary.
About as “mysterious” as most other recalls.
Why hasn’t Ford disclosed what the problem actually is?
Why do you hold Ford to a higher standard of disclosing granular detail than the rest of the industry?
They said it was a manufacturing defect in the fabrication of the cell at the battery plant (confirmed by the battery maker) which has now been remedied.
Nobody generally gives much more definition than that.
And I doubt you would truly be satisfied if they did.
An 8D would for sure be a fascinating read, but short of a court action those are never released. (Although you could possibly attempt a FOIA via NHTSA if you are up to the effort.)
I hold them to the same standard. If the vehicle is melting into disintegration and burns so hot it can melt the vehicles next to it, consumers need to know why. This is a major vehicle defect.
Eighteen units? Tip of the iceberg.
One needs to ask, How many Batteries are produced in a 4 week period?
18 made it out into the field. 1 burned at the plant taking 2 siblings with it. That’s 21. An undisclosed number are still held at the plant presumably awaiting either fixes or new packs.
For arguments sake, let’s say they make 3 batteries per day. That’s 15 per week, and 60 over a 4 week period. On the other hand, what if they are making 100 battery packs per day. Then we have around 2000 ( 500/wk x 4 weeks, for the math challenged). What changed in the battery maker’s process, and what was skipped in the process. Was it the grounding, was it the battery software, was it the connectors? Was there an issue at the assembly in Rawsonville? It would help everyone to know what went wrong.
Microsoft News just released an article that there is a lack of sales and interest in EVs that is unrelated to any parts shortages. Not a surprise due to their high cost and inefficiency of ownership. Especially with batteries catching fire.
Very little has been said about Tesla’s steering wheel’s falling off recall. Double standard from the Media?