DEARBORN (awp/afp) – Construction machinery is once again busy at the historic site of venerable American automaker Ford in Dearborn, in the northern United States, but this time to make way for an oil-free future .
The factory is mainly, for the moment, the place of manufacture of the F-150, a pick-up with a roaring gasoline engine. The chains produce one every 53 seconds.
But in September 2020, Ford started the construction of a slightly smaller factory not far away, to manufacture the electric version of the F-150, the Lightning.
On the roads since the spring, the Lightning is part of the growing range of electric vehicles offered in the United States, both by traditional manufacturers like Ford and by Tesla or Rivian.
At the Detroit auto show last week, US President Joe Biden said: “The great American road trip is going to go completely electric.”
Faced with the influx of reservations for the Lightning, which has accumulated around 200,000 orders since May 2021, Ford has quadrupled its initial production target.
Will the group end up selling more F-150 Litghning than with a combustion engine? This is the question on the minds of all the major automotive groups, which are investing billions of dollars in electric vehicles while continuing to produce millions of traditional vehicles each year.
“The industry is changing so fast, no one can really predict what’s going to happen,” said Chris Skaggs, in charge of the F-150 factory expansion.
“But we are adapting and we are going to look for the right resources to build the batteries and ramp up to meet demand, whatever it is”, underlines the manager.
Fighter planes and Mustangs
“I’ve been in the business for 29 years and I thought I’d be retired long before we got to where we are now,” also notes Mr. Skaggs.
The Lightning marks the latest transformation of the Dearborn complex, where Ford’s headquarters are also located.
It was built between 1917 and 1928 and originally housed both tire and engine manufacturing.
At its peak in the 1930s, more than 100,000 employees worked there. During World War II, fighter planes were built here. Then some emblematic Ford vehicles were assembled there, such as the Thunderbird or the Mustang.
The factory, long a symbol of the production chains that have revolutionized the industry, has lost its luster for a while, weighed down by restructuring and polluted soils.
But William Clay Ford Jr, the great-grandson of founder Henry Ford, insisted that the site be revitalized and soon after he took over as chairman of the board in 1999, began a 2-year renovation. billions of dollars.
The pickup plant opened in 2004.
Flexibility, just in case
The success of the F-150, the best-selling vehicle in the United States for 40 years, has never wavered.
The plant operates 24 hours a day, with 4,500 employees every three shifts.
The larger parts of the pick-up are cut from aluminum coils before being painted and then assembled.
The machine then travels through hundreds of workstations where motors, cables and other components are installed before wheel and headlight alignment are checked and computers confirm that all items are securely attached. .
All in a few hours.
In the factory manufacturing the electric version, the atmosphere is less overexcited, partly due to the efforts made on ergonomics.
Pick-up assembly still follows a production line but stops at fewer stations.
The ongoing expansion will double the size of the factory and add more workers — there are currently 500 — in order to produce 150,000 vehicles a year within a year, says Skaggs.
But everything is planned to be “flexible” so that the site can be used for both thermal and electric F-150s.
“If we were wrong, we could build more devices with combustion engines,” explains the manager. “If battery-electric vehicles really take off, as expected, we can still ramp up.”
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