A flaming electric F-150 could cripple Ford production for weeks, which would be catastrophic

Combustion in a car is always a problem, but it becomes particularly serious if the car in question is electric. Indeed, extinguishing a fire on an electric vehicle differs considerably from that of a petrol or diesel model, since the batteries serve as fuel and it can take several hours or even days to extinguish them.

This situation is becoming more and more frequent due to the increase in the number of electric cars on the roads. Some situations have more serious consequences than others, such as the Rimac Concept One fire which involved Richard Hammond or the Ford F-150 Lightning incident which was a real headache for Ford after it caught fire a few weeks ago.

five weeks late

Last February, Ford announced the end of production of its popular pickup truck , the Ford F-150 Lightning , which was its first zero-emission version. This decision was made following an incident reported by the Detroit Free Press , where a newly manufactured Ford F-150 Lightning caught fire while parked in a field with other units awaiting quality control final before being shipped to dealerships.

The fire quickly spread to a nearby vehicle, but Dearborn firefighters quickly brought the situation under control. In response to this incident, Ford made the decision to immediately suspend production of the Ford F-150 Lightning to investigate the causes of the fire and determine if it was due to a manufacturing defect. The assembly line was shut down for five weeks before restarting.

During the period in question, Ford conducted extensive checks to ensure that there was no risk of spontaneous fires in several units of the F-150 Lightning. Following its investigation, the brand confirmed that the units already produced were not affected by failures, which means that the fire was an isolated event.

It appears that Ford was able to identify the specific problem that caused the fire in one unit of the pickup, which was related to the lithium battery manufactured by South Korean company SK On . This company cooperated with Ford's investigation and determined that the incident was caused by a production error, including human error, and not a possible fault in the battery.

In any case, SK On also suspended the production of its batteries in South Korea for two weeks to check if the problem was related to a manufacturing defect in its batteries.

Even so, automakers have faced fire issues in their electric cars in the past. General Motors has also had to deal with accidental fires involving several Chevrolet Bolt EVs , resulting in a request for owners to park their cars outside and away from other vehicles, until a solution is found. .

In the end, LG, the battery maker , had to pay General Motors $1.9 billion to fix the problem. However, the case of the Chevrolet Bolt EV has yet to be fully resolved.

On the other hand, Tesla has also been accused of spontaneous fires in some of its cars, and it is true that several Tesla fire cases have been widely publicized, such as that of the Model 3 which took an hour and thousands liters of water to be extinguished.

The video posted to YouTube by CNBC , after it was requested from the Dearborn Police Department , clearly illustrates how the incident took a toll on Ford. Indeed, three new Ford F-150 Lightning were totally destroyed and the brand had to deal with considerable headaches.

Additionally, the production shutdown resulted in a loss of five weeks of work for Ford, as well as delivery delays for customers. When production resumed on March 13, Ford had to catch up and produce the units it should have made by then but weren't.