Ford isn’t going to make more F-150 Lightnings for a while

Ford Motor Co. has put its gas and hybrid F-150 and F-Series Super Duty trucks at the top of the production priority line as it tries to recover from damage linked to a fire at a key aluminum supplier’s factory.

The automaker’s all-electric F-150 Lightning didn’t make the list.

Ford said Thursday that assembly of the F-150 Lightning truck at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan will be suspended. The reason, according to Ford: The gas and hybrid F-Series trucks are more economical for Ford and use less aluminum.

While Ford cited sales growth for its all-electric F-150 Lightning truck, those numbers are still dwarfed by those of its gas-powered F-Series trucks.

Ford sold 10,005 F-150 Lightning pickups in the third quarter, a 39.7% year-over-year increase. To put that in context, Ford delivered 545,522 vehicles in the third quarter, of which 207,732 were F-Series. To date, Ford has sold 23,034 F-150 Lightning trucks in 2025, up nearly 1% from the first nine months of 2024. According to recent sales data.

A Ford spokesman noted that while the F-150 is the best-selling electric pickup in the U.S., the company is focusing on making gas and hybrid trucks as it recovers from a Sept. 16 fire at aluminum supplier Novelis’ plant in Oswego, New York that severely damaged its hot mill. Novelis said it hopes so Restart its hot tap By December 2025.

“We have a good inventory of the F-150 Lightning and will bring it back up to the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center (REVC) when the time is right, but there is no exact date at this time,” said spokesman Ian Thibodeau.

The Novelis plant fire was costly for Ford and disrupted production of some of its most popular and profitable vehicles. The fire will cost Ford $2 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, the automaker reported Thursday in its third-quarter earnings. Those costs, along with up to $1 billion in headwinds from tariffs, led Ford to cut its full-year profit guidance for 2025 from $6.5 billion to $6 billion.

Ford’s solution to recovering fire-related losses is to increase F-Series production to more than 50,000 trucks in 2026 by adding a third shift. The plan is expected to create up to 1,000 new jobs, and all hourly employees at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center will be moved next door to work the third shift at the Dearborn truck plant.