Ford Motor Co. is extending the downtime at an F-150 Lightning plant in Dearborn, Mich., for an extra week following a battery fireplace in a truck earlier this month.
The automaker, in a press release, mentioned battery-supplier SK On has made some manufacturing modifications and restarted manufacturing at its plant in Georgia.
“The groups labored rapidly to establish the foundation reason behind the difficulty,” Ford spokeswoman Jennifer Flake mentioned in an e mail. “We agree with SK’s beneficial modifications of their tools and processes for SK’s cell manufacturing traces.
“SK has began constructing battery cells once more in Commerce, Ga. It is going to take SK time to make sure they’re again to constructing high-quality cells and to ship them to the Lightning manufacturing line. Ford’s Rouge Electrical Automobile Heart will droop manufacturing by way of the tip of subsequent week, and we’ll proceed to offer updates.”
Flake mentioned the maintain on Lightning shipments to dealerships will proceed an additional week.
The fireplace in a truck occurred in a Dearborn holding lot on Feb. 4 throughout a pre-delivery high quality inspection and unfold to 2 different autos, in accordance with the corporate.
Ford has mentioned it’s not conscious of any points with autos already in buyer palms.
SK On has mentioned it believes the incident was a “uncommon prevalence.”
CNBC reported the prolonged downtime earlier Friday.