American car giant Ford has paused production of its F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck, blaming the decision on a fire at one of its aluminium suppliers’ factories, while matching that explanation with a ramp up of production of its F-150 gas and hybrid models.
Announcing the decision alongside the company’s third quarter financial results, Ford said that it plans to increase overall F-150 and F-Series Super Duty production by more than 50,000 trucks in 2026.
To accomplish this production ramp up, Ford will add a third crew at its Dearborn Truck Plant at the Ford Rouge Complex in Michigan for F-150 production and additional employees at Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville for F-Series Super Duty assembly.
Ford expects to assemble over 45,000 additional F-150 gas and hybrid trucks in 2026.
The American automaker offered up two explanations for its decision to ramp up production of its gas and hybrid F-150s, citing both the recent fire at supplier Novelis’ Oswego, New York, aluminium plant as well as “strong customer demand”.
Novelis, a leading producer of flat-rolled aluminium products as well as being the world’s largest recycler of aluminium, suffered a fire at a plant in Oswego, New York, in September.
In a recent update, Novelis promised that it has committed “the full strength of our resources to recovery and working 24/7 to restore the hot mill and repair the building” and is aiming to restart the hot mill by the end of the year.
However, the fire and subsequent halt at Novelis have given Ford the cover it needs to redirect its focus.
In its announcement last week, Ford equivocated between blaming the fire for the continued halt in F-150 Lightning production and assuring investors that this was the right decision anyway.
“F-150 Lightning assembly at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center will remain paused as Ford prioritizes gas and hybrid F-Series trucks, which are more profitable for Ford and use less aluminium,” the company said.
The good news for employees at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center is that they will simply be moved to join the newly announced third crew.
The bad news for Ford, however, is that the Novelis fire is expected to take a $US1 billion chunk out of its profits.
Separately, Rivian, one of the competitors to Ford’s F-150 Lightning, confirmed news that it was planning to lay off a portion of its workforce.
First reported last week by The Wall Street Journal, a letter from Rivian founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe, was sent out to the automaker’s workforce last Thursday, which was then shared with media outlets.
“With the launch of R2 in front of us and the need to profitably scale our business, we have made the very difficult decision to make a number of structural adjustments to our teams,” Scaringe reportedly wrote.
“These changes result in a reduction in the size of our team by roughly 4.5%.”
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.