Ford officials believe the battery-related issue that led to an F-150 Lightning catching fire has been resolved.
On Thursday, Ford spokesperson Emma Bergg told Motor Authority production of the Ford F-150 Lightning will restart on March 13.
The continued production shutdown will allow the Lightning’s battery supplier, SK On, time to build battery cells into arrays and packs before delivering them to the production line, according to Bergg.
All Lightnings already built but not shipped will continue to sit under the in-transit stop-ship order as the teams work through “engineering and parts updates.”
Bergg would not elaborate what those engineering and parts updates are, nor would she detail why there was a fire, what the battery issue that led to the fire was, or what changes to the truck will be made going forward.
A vehicle fire caused by a battery issue took place in February on the lot in Dearborn, Michigan, where the company holds vehicles for quality checks. It caused the production halt that will last a full month.
A stop-sale and recall have not been issued for F-150 Lightnings that were already built, at dealers, or already delivered. All Lightnings that have left the factory were cleared for scheduled deliveries.
Ford doesn’t release detailed production information and wouldn’t disclose how many Lightnings were rolling off the assembly line per day when production was shut down. It’s unclear how far this setback pushes production behind schedule. Bergg noted Ford isn’t disclosing details on how many Lightning reservations are in the bank, but said there were 200,0000 when Ford stopped taking reservations in December 2021.
In 2022, Ford reported 15,617 F-150 Lightning sales with 2,359 sales in December.
Ford hiked the Lightning’s price three times since its launch almost a year ago. The base Lightning is now $57,869, or 38.9% more expensive than when it went on sale.
