Ford's electric drive reinvents historic Michigan factory
Construction crews are back at Dearborn, remaking Ford's century-old industrial complex once again, this time for a post-petroleum era that is finally beginning to feel possible.
The manufacturing operation's prime mission in recent times has been to assemble the best-selling F-150, a gasoline-powered vehicle.
The truck plant churns out a new pickup truck every 53 seconds in a well-oiled process that will continue for the foreseeable future.
But in September 2020, Ford broke ground on a smaller facility on neighboring land, tasking the new operation with building a battery electric cousin to the internal combustion engine (ICE) F-150.
The F-150 Lightning is part of a growing fleet of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) hitting the roadways from established automakers and upstarts.
At the Detroit Auto Show last week, President Joe Biden proclaimed that "the great American Road Trip is going to be fully electrified."
After racking up some 200,000 reservations for the Lightning, Ford has announced expansions to quadruple output over the next year.
Will there be a tipping point where the Lightning could overtake the ICE model? That is a question on the minds of officials at Ford and rival Detroit automakers that are investing billions of dollars in BEVs while still producing millions of ICE vehicles.
A cab is lowered on the frame of a battery-powered F-150 Lightning truck at Ford's Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan.