Lightning production plant being paused due to aluminum plant fire 😕

[arod412]

Just wait until gas/oil goes up....all of a sudden there is a demand and they will get back to making lighting. Thats how I see it.

It is a bummer with shutting down the lighting, but I think that they need to figure out a way to reduce pricing so it can sell more and make more from it.

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[PreservedSwine]

The fire is a handy out for Ford to get back to common sense manufacturing. Build+sell=profit.

They no longer have the EPA chokehold mandating what they can build. Wouldn't surprise me if they quit building EV's completely.

I hope I'm completely wrong.

The market agrees, as reflected in the stock movement after this news dropped.
if the government simply stayed out of it, instead of forcing the issue, there wouldn't be such ingrained resistance and strong ev resentment among so many people.
Personally love my Lightning. It's impossible not to after driving it.
I still believe things will work themselves out. It's simply better.

 

[PJnc284]

Heck I hope it stays low. Makes my fishing trips a lot cheaper. 80-90 gallons of E-Free 93 still ain't cheap.

 

[Altivec]

Canada has plenty aluminum but....

Do or die Ford. Why not cancel a line of the ICE F-Series instead?

Also, isn't aluminum a commodity? Why bottleneck to a single-sourced supplier?

Unfortunately, The US is only capable of producing a small percentage of the aluminum manufactures require so there is a huge bottleneck. Tariffs for buying aluminium from other countries would eat up all the profit and therefor not worth it. Too bad a deal with Canada seems so unachievable. Much better than having US companies shut production lines and lose billions.

 

[flyct]

I fear that if we abandon EVs as a country China will eat our lunch. They are so far ahead of us. I fear if we don't embrace EV's now we will never catch up.

40% of new vehicle sales in China are EVs and almost 100% of motorbikes are electric. Everyone who visits comments on how quiet the streets are and how pollution free with all the EV traffic.

I fear we as a country are going back to the "good old 50's".

 

[RickLightning]

Nobody is abandoning EVs. Nonsense.

A neighbor of mine is a Ford executive. Saw him recently, he owns a Mach-E and a Lightning, just like us. I said "hey, your Lightning is going to be a collectible, with no more being made." He laughed, because it is a ridiculous statement.

I expect Lightning production to resume within weeks of the aluminum plant resuming full production.

 

[John Becker]

Unless I'm missing something here, it also appears that the last 2025 models have, or are rolling off of the assembly line now. When production restarts in Q1, wouldn't it be the 2026 model?

 

[TaxmanHog]

Unless I'm missing something here, it also appears that the last 2025 models have, or are rolling off of the assembly line now. When production restarts in Q1, wouldn't it be the 2026 model?

That's a flexible situation, if the factory can't fulfill orders placed on 25's by the planned turn over, they will cancel those builds and transfer the buyers into an equivalent MY26 version with price protection.

The last video I listened to from Tim indicated they were taking orders on both 25 and 26, but cautioned his customers to consider placing for 26 instead as it's likely they won't meet the 25 goals, more so with this pause in production.

In years past, cut over happened in October or November and now recently it was planned for December.

 

[Pioneer74]

Unless I'm missing something here, it also appears that the last 2025 models have, or are rolling off of the assembly line now. When production restarts in Q1, wouldn't it be the 2026 model?

They would have to be 26's. You can't legally produce a previous calender year model.

 

[proprepper]

Economics.
Gas falling.
Electric rates skyrocketing.

Demand for EV's fall off the cliff

 

[djwildstar]

I fear that if we abandon EVs as a country China will eat our lunch. [...] I fear we as a country are going back to the "good old 50's".

I think Ford's executive team is aware of the Chinese EV threat. My understanding is that Ford is the US carmaker with the largest international presence -- roughly a third of Ford's revenue is from non-US sales, and about 15% of all Fords assembled in the US are exported. I see a very clear possibility of a repeat of the "malaise era" starring Chinese EVs in the role of inexpensive, reliable, and efficient alternatives to US-made autos. So Ford either has to be able to design and build worthy EVs at competitive prices, or lose a significant chunk of revenue.

It is significant to me that Ford didn't need a bailout from the Troubled Asset Relief Program during the Great Recession (while GM and Chrysler did). This suggests responsible and forward-thinking management on the part of Ford. So even absent enforcement of the EPA clean-air/fuel-efficency standards, Ford will continue to design and build a variety of EVs. The main constraint will be how much money the stockholders (meaning Wall Street) will allow them to invest in EVs without tanking the stock price.

I do feel that there is definitely a bunch of 50's nostalgia going on -- but mostly by people who didn't really live through the 50's. So it is more like longing for the "good old days" as portrayed in popular media (think American Graffiti, Happy Days, Grease, etc ...) and described in stories from older people. So it's a nostalgia for a semi-mythical perfect time that never really was.

 

[davehu]

I think Ford's executive team is aware of the Chinese EV threat. My understanding is that Ford is the US carmaker with the largest international presence -- roughly a third of Ford's revenue is from non-US sales, and about 15% of all Fords assembled in the US are exported. I see a very clear possibility of a repeat of the "malaise era" starring Chinese EVs in the role of inexpensive, reliable, and efficient alternatives to US-made autos. So Ford either has to be able to design and build worthy EVs at competitive prices, or lose a significant chunk of revenue.

It is significant to me that Ford didn't need a bailout from the Troubled Asset Relief Program during the Great Recession (while GM and Chrysler did). This suggests responsible and forward-thinking management on the part of Ford. So even absent enforcement of the EPA clean-air/fuel-efficency standards, Ford will continue to design and build a variety of EVs. The main constraint will be how much money the stockholders (meaning Wall Street) will allow them to invest in EVs without tanking the stock price.

I do feel that there is definitely a bunch of 50's nostalgia going on -- but mostly by people who didn't really live through the 50's. So it is more like longing for the "good old days" as portrayed in popular media (think American Graffiti, Happy Days, Grease, etc ...) and described in stories from older people. So it's a nostalgia for a semi-mythical perfect time that never really was.

Although Ford does very well internationally actually for 2024 US sales made up 50% of the total not 15%.

 

[djwildstar]

Although Ford does very well internationally actually for 2024 US sales made up 50% of the total not 15%.

You may want to re-read my post -- I didn't write what you think I wrote.

I said "15% of all Fords assembled in the US are exported". In other words, about 6 of every 7 (or roughly 85%) of Ford vehicles built in the US are sold in the US, while the rest -- about 1 in 7 or roughly 15% -- are sold to outside of the US. This is strictly about number of vehicles assembled in the US, not sales dollars or revenue.

I also said "Roughly a third of Ford's revenue is from non-US sales". In other words, about 67% of Ford's revenue is from the US, and about 33% from other countries. This is from BullFincher's analysis of their 2024 financials. I do not have sales breakdowns, but would believe that Ford makes higher margins on US sales than on non-US sales. The revenue breakdown is:

67.55% -- United States​

7.25% -- Canada​

5.37% -- United Kingdom​

1.42% -- Mexico​

18.40% -- all other geographic regions​

 

[WXman]

Yahoo! Finance published a poor article asserting that F-150 Lightning is done due to poor sales. My goodness....

"Ford will stop making its electric vehicle (EV) flagship, the F-150 Lightning. The New York Times reports this could be attributed to both the fire and flagging sales. In the first three quarters of the year, Lightning unit sales were up only 1% to 23,034. The extent to which Ford is entirely a gasoline-powered car company shows up in overall F-Series sales, which rose 12.7% to 620,580.

Ford’s management shows wisdom in shutting down Lightning production. The electric pickup never sold well, suggesting its launch was a terrible mistake. Additionally, the U.S. EV market is dying and will not bounce back soon. The $7,500 EV tax credit expired at the end of the third quarter. People who wanted an EV rushed to buy one before the deadline.

iSeeCars said that about 8% of new car sales were EVs in the first three-quarters of the year. It forecasts that the number will drop to 4% in the fourth quarter and stay that low throughout 2026."

 

[Ford Motor Company]

Yahoo! Finance published a poor article asserting that F-150 Lightning is done due to poor sales. My goodness....

"Ford will stop making its electric vehicle (EV) flagship, the F-150 Lightning. The New York Times reports this could be attributed to both the fire and flagging sales. In the first three quarters of the year, Lightning unit sales were up only 1% to 23,034. The extent to which Ford is entirely a gasoline-powered car company shows up in overall F-Series sales, which rose 12.7% to 620,580.

Ford’s management shows wisdom in shutting down Lightning production. The electric pickup never sold well, suggesting its launch was a terrible mistake. Additionally, the U.S. EV market is dying and will not bounce back soon. The $7,500 EV tax credit expired at the end of the third quarter. People who wanted an EV rushed to buy one before the deadline.

iSeeCars said that about 8% of new car sales were EVs in the first three-quarters of the year. It forecasts that the number will drop to 4% in the fourth quarter and stay that low throughout 2026."

Unfactual reporting.

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