Upgrades to the Rouge Plant have been completed after a six-week break in production.
This will make it possible to build up to 150,000 units of the electric truck per year.
A new station related to driver assistance features has been added to the assembly line.
Ford says the production of the electric F-150 Lightning pickup has resumed after a six-week hiatus during which improvement work took place at the facility where it is built.
While the historic Rouge production plant in Michigan was extensively modernized ahead of the launch of the F-150 Lightning, additional work was needed to increase production capacity to a level where Ford can hope to match demand.
Indeed, the actual facility saw its footprint increase from 505,000 square feet all the way up to 875,000 square feet in the past few weeks.
In order to fill this additional space, Ford will hire around 1,200 new factory workers who will get to operate new tooling that automatically measures panel fitment tolerances, a first for the automaker in North America.
While stopping production for a month and a half did nothing to help reduce the order backlog for the electric truck, Ford is confident the increase in production rate will more than make up for it.
Despite this pause, the company is expected to deliver 70,000 units of the pickup in calendar year 2023, and production should hit its stride next year when targets of 150,000 units should be reached.
This is despite the fact that a new station has been added to the assembly line in order to validate wheel alignment and headlight aim, with the goal of making the truck’s driver assistance features more effective.
In order to keep up with this increased production rate, Ford’s Rawsonville Components plant and Van Dyke Powertrain Center, which respectively supply the battery and motors, will see increased output starting soon.
Such an increase in the number of trucks produced each year will allow the company to offer additional trim levels for the F-150 Lightning, according to the automaker.
At the moment, Ford is focussing on models that account for the majority of orders, such as the mid-level XLT, but the entry-level Pro version is now available again, but only for those who have ordered one right from the start.
