Ford Motor Company has announced an unspecified potential battery issue has led the company to stop producing and shipping its electric F-150 truck model, according to reports.
Motor Authority reported Thursday that the company had placed a “stop-build and an in-transit stop-ship order” on the truck.
The automaker discovered the issue during its “pre-delivery quality inspections,” the outlet’s Joel Feder noted, citing Ford representative Emma Bergg.
Ford halts F-150 Lightning production due to possible battery issue https://t.co/eDvX7qFyS9
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) February 14, 2023
“The team is diligently working on the root cause analysis,” CNBC quoted Bergg as saying.
It is not clear when Ford will begin producing and shipping the model again.
“It depends on how long it will take to conduct the root cause analysis,” Bergg told Motor Authority.
EARNINGS: Ford Q4 EPS $0.51 Adj. vs. $0.62 Est.; Q4 Revs. $41.8B vs. $40.37B Est. • $F https://t.co/7xBsNuyL3L pic.twitter.com/Pyi1GPSanX
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) February 2, 2023
This comes as Ford has announced a disappointing fourth quarter, reporting that its net income has fallen $11 billion since the same time last year, per CNBC.
The company cited “execution issues” as a cause of its performance in the earnings report.
In 2021, TechCrunch described the Lightning F-150 as a “critical piece of the company’s $22 billion investment into electrification.”
“The vehicle is one of a trifecta of Ford EV debuts and launches in the past year. And it is possibly the most meaningful in terms of the bottom line,” the TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec wrote.
However, some observers have questioned the model’s appeal to consumers, specifically on questions of performance.
A Motor Trend review noted the truck’s “limited towing range” following some performance tests:
The truck cut its estimated range in half every time we connected a trailer and punched the load’s weight and dimensions into the 15.5-inch touchscreen. That number then fell rapidly during the first few miles of highway driving until it accurately reflected what was possible. Until someone figures out how to double or triple the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, that seems like the most we can ask of electric vehicles that are pressed into towing duty.
Similarly, as Breitbart News noted in September, a YouTuber tested the truck’s towing range and was ultimately disappointed with the results.
“So, yeah, that was abysmally bad, and if the future is electric, there has to be some kind of solution for this,” he said. “I have no idea why EVs tow so bad. My guess would be it doesn’t have a normal transmission where there’s gears and a car’s in a lower rev range.”
Also potentially impacting its viability in the market is its higher-than-expected price.
The Wall Street Journal reported in October that Ford has hiked the price of the F-150 twice, noting that while the truck was expected to start at “around $40,000,” the Pro model of the Lighting F-150 was ultimately priced at nearly $52,000.
You can follow Michael Foster on Twitter at @realmfoster.