Ford paused production of the F-150 Lightning in February 2023 and issued a recall in March as a result of the sudden blaze.
The Dearborn Police Department, near Detroit, Michigan, recently published previously unreleased footage of the Ford F-150 Lightning fire that reportedly sparked the recent recall. Thanks to Michigan's Freedom of Information Act, the footage is now live for everyone to see.
CNBC Television hosted the video on its YouTube channel and shared that it reveals smoke rising up from three electric pickup trucks that are parked closely together. The fire took place at a Ford holding lot in Dearborn, not far from where the automaker's world headquarters is situated.
The fire, which occurred on February 4, 2023, destroyed multiple vehicles and caused a production pause, stop shipment, and recall of Ford's relatively new and popular electric pickup. Ford shared that there was some sort of defect with the F-150 Lightning's battery, as the fire reportedly started while the electric truck was charging for a pre-delivery quality check.
Production remained paused for almost a month as Ford and battery supplier SK On worked to get to the root of the problem. The automaker officially recalled just 18 F-150 Lightning pickups for a reported manufacturing defect related to their battery cells. Ford said the 18 trucks were shipped to dealers and/or potentially already delivered to customers.
Fast-forward to March 2, 2023, and Ford officially announced that its investigation was complete and that production would resume on March 13. According to Autoblog, a Ford spokesperson shared the following statement related to the situation in March:
"Ford is not aware of any reports of accident or injury related to this recall. Together with SK On, we have confirmed the root causes and have implemented quality actions. Production is on track to resume Monday with clean stock of battery packs.”
The 18 recalled F-150 Lighting electric trucks all had their original battery packs replaced. Ford also made it clear after its thorough investigation that it doesn't believe any other Lightning trucks were impacted by the battery cell manufacturing defect.
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