Ford is recalling 18 units of its F-150 Lightning pickup truck as the automaker believes they may have a battery cell defect. The defect resulted in a fire last month which led to a production halt that is ongoing but expected to end next week.
After initially saying the issue didn’t affect Lightning trucks already delivered to customers, Ford has now identified 18 units that were potentially built with faulty battery cells during a four-week period at a Georgia facility operated by their battery supplier SK On.
More than just 18 units were potentially affected during this four-week period, but those EVs were not yet delivered to customers. A Ford spokesperson said they were still “applying quality actions to already-produced vehicles with batteries built in this four-week window which we have been holding.” (via CNBC)
Ford has not yet publicly disclosed what the exact issue is that resulted in a Lightning catching fire during a routine quality inspection on February 4. Production was initially halted on February 14 and expected to restart around two weeks later, but the Detroit-based automaker later extended the production shutdown until March 13 so they could fully apply their learnings to the battery pack production process.
After announcing the recall Ford confirmed they still plan to resume Lightning production at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center on Monday, March 13. The official recall notice has not yet been published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The Lightning has proven popular among Ford customers so far, but production has not been able to keep up with the level of demand. As a result Ford said earlier this month it planned to triple F-150 Lightning production to annual run rate of 150,000 this year.
