Ford won’t be making any more F-150 Lightnings for a while

Ford Motor Company has placed its F-150 and F-Series Super Duty gas and hybrid trucks on top of production as it tries to recover from losses related to a fire at a critical aluminum supplier’s plant.

The all-electric F-150 Lightning was not included on the list.

Assembly of the F-150 Lightning truck at its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, will remain temporarily halted, Ford said Thursday. The reason, according to Ford: F-Series gas and hybrid trucks are more profitable for Ford and use less aluminum.

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

Ford sold 10,005 F-150 Lightning pickup trucks in the third quarter, an increase of 39.7% year over year. To put that in context, Ford delivered 545,522 vehicles in the third quarter, including 207,732 F-Series vehicles. So far, Ford has sold 23,034 F-150 Lightning trucks in 2025, an increase of about 1% from the first nine months of 2024, according to recent sales data.

A Ford spokesman noted that although the F-150 is the best-selling electric pickup in the United States, the company is focusing on producing gas and hybrid trucks as it recovers from the Sept. 16 fire at aluminum supplier Novelis’ plant in Oswego, New York, that severely damaged its hot mill. Novelis said it expects to have its hot mill back in operation by December 2025.

“We have good inventory of the F-150 Lightning and will bring the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center (REVC) back online in due course, but we do not have a specific date at this time,” company spokesman Ian Thibodeau said.

The Novelis plant fire cost Ford the company and disrupted production of some of its most popular and profitable vehicles. The fire will cost Ford up to $2 billion in profits in the fourth quarter, the automaker said Thursday in its third-quarter earnings. That cost, coupled with a $1 billion headwind from tariffs, prompted Ford to cut its full-year earnings guidance for 2025 to $6 billion from $6.5 billion.

Ford’s solution to offset fire-related losses is to increase F Series production volume by 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 adjacent Rouge Electric Vehicle Center will be moved to work the third shift at the Dearborn truck plant.