Previously unseen footage has now emerged.
Video footage of a fire involving a trio of Ford F-150 Lightning models and pictures of the aftermath has emerged. CNBC used Michigan's Freedom of Information Act from the Dearborn Police Department to bring this into the public domain.
In February, Ford halted production of its electric truck due to battery fires. Then, in March, the automaker had to recall 18 units that slipped through the net. However, this is the first time video footage has surfaced of a holding lot fire at Ford's Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn.
No doubt, Ford would have liked to keep this footage under wraps, but it serves as a reminder of just how dangerous an EV fire is and why Ford is willing to suspend production to make sure customer vehicles are as safe as possible.
"We're not putting this [expletive] out. Look at it," said one of the firefighters present before it spread to the two surrounding vehicles. The fire started while the F-150 Lightning was charging during a pre-delivery quality check. The cause was narrowed down to a manufacturing defect causing an internal short circuit when the battery was taking on a high state of charge.
"Together with SK On, we confirmed the root causes and swiftly implemented quality actions," Ford said in a statement. "The Rouge Electric Vehicle Center has been back up and running since March 13 and is back to full production and shipping vehicles to customers."
We are still in the early adoption stage for electric vehicles, and history is littered with manufacturing problems and recalls over deadly faults in vehicle components. It's also worth noting that, to Ford's credit, none of the affected vehicles made it to customers.
Our worry, though, is that the pressure of a forced transition to electric vehicles from governments coupled with automakers battling to have the latest and greatest batteries and the fastest charging times could result in an automaker not catching an issue in time and dangerous vehicles making it to customers.
EV fires are also an issue for those tasked with putting them out. "This is a big issue globally," said Michael O'Brian, board member of the International Fire Chiefs Association. "We need to better understand what the best processes are through testing and evaluation with real firefighters."
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