Ford Suspends F-150 Lightning Electric Pickup Line for 'A Few Weeks' Over Battery Fire Issue
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Yet another electric vehicle (EV) line has encountered trouble with its lithium-ion batteries catching fire. Ford Motor Company announced on Wednesday it was pausing production and distribution of the electric version of its F-150 pickup truck, dubbed the Lightning.
The decision came after a battery in one of the trucks erupted in flames during a pre-delivery quality check at Ford’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan. Earlier this week, Ford said it had paused the F-150 Lightning production line on February 4, but gave no explanation.
A spokesperson for the automobile maker told US media on Wednesday the company expected to finish its investigation by the end of the week, but that it “could take a few weeks” to change the production process afterward.
The battery supplier for the Lightning is the Seoul-based EV battery maker SK On. A new facility for producing batteries for the US market was christened in Commerce, Georgia, in December 2022. It’s not known if the battery that caught fire came from that facility. However, no other instances of battery fires have been reported in F-150 Lightnings out on the road.
6 February 2023, 19:45 GMT
Ford, which revolutionized both automobile ownership and general manufacturing processes worldwide with an assembly line process in the early 20th century, only began producing EVs in 2011 with an electric conversion of its popular Focus hatchback. However, it has since embraced a number of other hybrid or EV conversions of its classic vehicles, including the best-selling F-150, which is key to its goal of increasing EV production to 600,000 units this year - 150,000 of which it hopes will be F-150s - and 2 million annually by the end of next year. In 2022, the Lightning’s first year of full production, Ford sold just 15,000 of the electric pickups.
Ford is by no means the only EV maker struggling with a battery issue, though. US domestic rival General Motors was forced to halt production of its Chevrolet Bolt in August 2021, and recall all 141,000 that had been produced, as a result of battery fire risk. Production was only resumed last April.
Tesla, which solely makes electric vehicles, is perhaps the most notorious for having batteries that enter “thermal runaway,” a process by which the highly flammable liquid electrolyte inside of defective lithium-ion battery cells leaks out, heats up, melts, and catches fire, bursting other cells that also catch fire. A Tesla sedan that "spontaneously" burst into flames on a Sacramento freeway last month required 6,000 gallons of water for the fire to be put out.
Crews arrived to a Tesla Model S engulfed in flames, nothing unusual prior. 2 Fire Engines, a water tender, and a ladder truck were requested to assist. Crews used jacks to access the underside to extinguish and cool the battery. Thousands of gallons were used in extinguishment. pic.twitter.com/5dIXxo9hP5
— Metro Fire of Sacramento (@metrofirepio) January 29, 2023
That said, Ford has struggled to make headway in the EV market against Tesla. Ford recently reported it had lost $2 billion in 2022, falling short in sales by roughly 100,000 units. However, production shortfalls have been an industry-wide problem since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which created a massive demand for electronic devices at the same time as it triggered bottlenecks in production, creating a global shortage of semiconductor computer chips.
