Ford has issued a recall for 18 F-150 Lightnings due to a battery cell manufacturing defect discovered during post-production inspections. The issue was traced back to the SK On plant in Georgia, and the affected vehicles were built over a four-week period starting at the end of last year. Ford is not aware of any reports of accident or injury related to this recall.
The recall was initiated after one vehicle displayed a battery issue and caught fire in a holding lot at Ford’s manufacturing facility. Ford put a stop-shipment on all vehicles currently being shipped to customers and dealers, and paused production, but did not initiate a stop-sale. So trucks that were already at dealers could still be released to customers.
Ford has identified 18 affected trucks which made their way into the hands of customers, and is recalling those vehicles to make sure the batteries are in proper shape. Affected customers will have their high voltage battery packs replaced by their dealer. Ford says affected customers can continue to drive their vehicles but are encouraged to make an appointment for the repair at their earliest convenience.
After ironing out the problems and getting some fresh battery packs, Ford said it plans to restart production on March 13. This is the only issue we’ve heard of with batteries from SK On, so hopefully this is transitory and only affected a couple batches of battery cells. SK On also supplies batteries for the VW ID.4, and has partnered with Hyundai as well.
Overall, this recall is relatively minor, given the limited scope of 18 vehicles. It might take more work than a software update, but 18 trucks is pretty minimal, especially since it sounds like those trucks maybe shouldn’t have been released to customers in the first place. Ford will inform affected customers as soon as possible and those customers will have their high voltage battery packs replaced by their dealer.
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