Ford Motor Co. has temporarily halted production and stopped shipments of its hot-selling F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck over an unidentified problem with its battery.
(Bloomberg) — Ford Motor Co. has temporarily halted production and stopped shipments of its hot-selling F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck over an unidentified problem with its battery.
The automaker confirmed Tuesday it stopped building the plug-in pickup at its factory in Dearborn, Michigan, while engineers seek a solution to a “potential quality issue” discovered on a truck at the plant. Ford said in an emailed statement that it’s not delivering trucks that are in transit to dealers.
Ford’s battery partner SK On Co. is helping to investigate the issue, a spokesman for the South Korean company said in a text message.
Demand for the Lightning has been strong since Ford began selling the battery-powered model of the best-selling vehicle in America last April. It helped the company more than double electric-vehicle sales last year, making it the No. 2 seller of EVs in America behind Tesla Inc., which controls nearly two-thirds of the US market.
Ford has been running the Lightning factory on three work crews, seven days a week with a goal of boosting output to 150,000 annually by this fall.
Ford’s shares slipped 0.9% Tuesday in New York. SK On’s parent SK Innovation Co. tumbled 6.3% in Seoul on Wednesday morning, its biggest loss since Nov. 4. The production halt was reported earlier by Motor Authority.
–With assistance from Heejin Kim.
(Adds comment from SK On and share performance.)
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