Cause of fire in Ford’s F-150 Lightning is “rare”, says battery manufacturer
Ford Motor’s battery supplier says the defect that led to a fire in an electric F-150 Lightning earlier this month and halted production is not a fundamental flaw in the power source’s design.
SK On, the car battery unit of South Korea’s SK Innovation Co. Ltd, has been working with Ford to identify the problem and is implementing a fix, the company said in an emailed statement on Monday. The fire in a parking lot near the Lightning factory in Dearborn, Michigan, spread to two more trucks on February 4 and has shut down the plant in a fourth week.
“We believe this was a rare occurrence and not a fundamental issue with the battery cell technology or our overall manufacturing systems,” SK said in the statement. “Working with Ford, SK On identified the root cause of the issue and implemented improvement actions in our processes to address the issue.”
SK said it has resumed battery production at its Georgia factory. SK and Ford are spending $11.4 billion to build three more battery plants and an F-Series electric assembly plant in Tennessee and Kentucky. Ford also announced this month that it is building a $3.5 billion battery plant in Michigan that will use technology from Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd.
The Lightning is Ford’s signature plug-in vehicle as the automaker electrifies its lineup by investing $50 billion in designing and building 2 million battery-powered models per year by 2026. The Dearborn factory that makes it has been operating seven days a week and aims to increase production to 150,000 vehicles a year by the fall.
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