Ford Is Back to Building the F-150 Lightning After Retooling

Ford announced Tuesday that assembly of the F-150 Lightning will restart at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center following a six-week shutdown for a retooling effort aimed at increasing production.

Customers have had a hard time getting their hands on the F-150 Lightning since its debut last year. Before the retooling efforts in Dearborn, customers were faced with wait times up to 24 months long. That sort of lag time wasn’t doing the Lightning any favors, so Ford slowed deliveries over the summer in the hopes of increasing overall production capacity. Those efforts have worked, as Ford Model e’s Marin Gjaja told Automotive News that wait times are now down to just three months.

Part of that improvement comes down to some new equipment at the Rouge, including precision measuring equipment for improved body gaps and flushness. It marks the first time the Blue Oval has used such equipment inside one of its North American facilities, aiding in the automaker's goals surrounding improved quality. Ford is also training 1200 new employees slated to join the production line. The facility is now scheduled to produce some 70,000 F-150 Lightnings during the 2023 calendar year.

Ford also said that the improvements at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center will allow an annualized production of 150,000 units, which is three times the plant’s initial capacity. This increased production capacity will allow Ford to add new trim levels to the lineup, but the automaker hasn’t shared any specifics at this time. It will also allow the automaker to focus on building some dealer stock units, which have been a problem point with Lightning thus far. In order to meet the increasing demand at the Rouge, the Blue Oval has also tasked Michigan’s Rawsonville Components Plant and the Van Dyke Electric Powertrain Center with increasing battery production.

Interest in the F-150 Lightning has spiked as of late, after Ford announced it chopped as much as $10,000 off of the truck’s MSRP. Ford said that the recent price drop really got buyers excited, as the number of orders in the bank increased sixfold. Whether or not that’s gonna help the F-150 keep its sales crown in the EV era will be an important question for Ford as time marches on.

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