Bill Ford said \
Dearborn — Ford Motor Co. on Thursday announced it will invest an additional $250 million and create 450 jobs at three of its southeast Michigan plants to boost production capacity for the all-electric F-150 Lightning that is slated to launch next spring. The investments and jobs will be spread across three plants: the new Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn where the F-150 Lightning will be assembled; the Van Dyke Electric Powertrain Center in Sterling Heights that is ramping up production of electric motors and transaxles for electric vehicles; and the Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti, where workers will assemble battery packs for the Lightning. Meanwhile, the Dearborn automaker invited media and elected officials, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, to the electric vehicle plant to see the first pre-production versions of the truck. Ford executives say the F-150 Lightning has exceeded their initial expectations for the amount of interest it’s generated from potential customers, with more than 150,000 reservations on the books. The additional investments and jobs will help increase production capacity for the Lightning to 80,000 trucks a year, about double what was originally planned. Ford officials said they expect to hit the 80,000-per-year target in 2023. They declined to comment on the maximum production capacity the plant could eventually hit. “The reservation numbers have been growing quite rapidly since we launched it; that’s why we’re increasing the capacity and building as fast as we can,» said Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s president of the Americas & International Markets Group. «We knew the F-150 Lightning was special, but the interest from the public has surpassed our highest expectations and changed the conversation around electric vehicles,» Bill Ford, executive chair of the company, said in a statement.
