WORLD NEWS | Ford halts production of electric F-150 after battery catches fire

DEARBORN (United States), Feb. 16 (AP) — Ford Motor Co has halted production and halted shipments of its F-150 Lightning electric pickup after a battery caught fire during a pre-delivery quality inspection.

Production at Ford’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Mich., won’t stop until at least the end of next week.

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The automaker said in a statement late Wednesday that it had no reason to believe electric pickups already in use by customers would be affected by the battery issue.

“By the end of next week, we expect to have completed our investigation and applied what we learned to the battery production process for trucks,” Ford spokeswoman Emma Berg said in a statement. “It could take weeks.”

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The fire broke out in an outdoor parking lot near Dearborn where vehicles were being stored for quality inspection. The truck with the faulty battery and two nearby vehicles were damaged in the fire, Berg said. No injuries were reported.

The company believes it has identified the root cause of the battery issue, including the number of trucks that may be affected by it. “We monitor vehicle data to help ensure our vehicles are performing as expected in the field,” Berg said.

The company will continue to hold the completed truck until engineering and production changes are made.

The truck batteries are supplied by South Korean supplier SK Innovation, which has a factory in Georgia.

The discontinuation came at an inopportune time for Ford, which has battled quality issues, recalls and high warranty costs for years.

The issue also halted production of popular products. Berg said the company is still working through a backlog of nearly 200,000 F-150 reservations since it stopped accepting the F-150 Lightning in December 2021. Reservation holders put down a $100 deposit, which Ford is converting into an order.

Last year, Ford sold more than 15,000 trucks in its first full year of production.

The lithium-ion batteries used in most electric vehicles have previously had problems. Fires in batteries can burn so hot that they require thousands of gallons of water to extinguish, making it difficult for firefighters trying to extinguish battery fires that followed several Tesla vehicles in a crash. General Motors, Hyundai, BMW and others have issued battery recall notices. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)