Ford Motor has stopped manufacturing and shipments of its electrical pickup truck, the F-150 Lightning, whereas it seems into a possible downside with the car’s battery pack.
“As a part of our predelivery high quality inspections, a car displayed a possible battery difficulty and we’re holding automobiles whereas we examine,” the corporate stated Tuesday in a press release. “We’re not conscious of any incidences of this difficulty within the discipline.”
The F-150 Lightning was launched final yr and is among the most outstanding automobiles Ford has added to its lineup in many years. The automaker has been hoping to ramp up manufacturing and set up a agency lead in electrical pickups, which have the potential to grow to be a big and profitable phase of the E.V. market.
Faults in high-voltage automotive batteries may cause overheating and intense fires that may take hours to place out. For a number of months in 2021 and 2022, Normal Motors needed to cease producing and transport its Chevrolet Bolt electrical compact after a producing glitch was discovered to have brought about a lot of fires. G.M. corrected the issue, changed the battery packs in all of the Bolts it constructed from 2017 to 2021 and resumed manufacturing final yr.
Tesla vehicles have additionally been concerned in a lot of fires attributable to broken or defective batteries.
Ford is the most important producer of E.V.s in the US after Tesla. Along with the F-150 Lightning and the E-Transit, Ford makes an electrical sport utility car, the Mustang Mach-E. The Mach-E makes use of a special battery pack from the Lightning.
Ford has greater than 200,000 reservations for Lightnings, however has been unable to extend manufacturing past about 2,000 to 2,400 a month. By the top of final yr, it had offered barely over 15,000. The truck is made in Dearborn, Mich., and its battery pack is made by a South Korean provider, SK On, in Georgia and Hungary.
The battery difficulty has cropped up as Ford is attempting to chop prices and return to profitability. It misplaced $2 billion in 2022.
On Monday, Ford stated it deliberate to construct a $3.5 billion battery plant in Michigan with expertise and assist from a key Chinese language provider, Up to date Amperex Expertise Restricted, referred to as CATL, the world’s largest provider of automotive batteries.
The plant will make so-called LFP batteries, which use lithium, iron and phosphate and are anticipated to be markedly inexpensive than the batteries that Ford and most different automakers use now. SK On makes NMC batteries, which use the high-cost components nickel, manganese and cobalt.
The plant will probably be in Marshall, about 100 miles west of Detroit, and Ford says it should make use of 2,500 folks when it opens in 2026.
