President Joe Biden drives the electric Ford F-150 Lightning (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
Ford Motor Company is halting production of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck at a Michigan factory, the auto giant announced Thursday. Just three years ago, President Joe Biden and Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) visited the plant to celebrate the truck's rollout, calling it an "incredible facility" that shows there's "no limit to what American ingenuity and manufacturing can accomplish."
Ford—which, like other major automakers, has struggled to keep its EV business afloat—will shutter the Dearborn, Michigan, manufacturing plant beginning on Nov. 18 and until Jan. 6, 2025. "We continue to adjust production for an optimal mix of sales growth and profitability," the company said in a statement Thursday.
"Ford’s halt in F-150 Lightning production highlights the disastrous impact of federal EV mandates driven by the Biden-Harris administration," Jason Isaac, the CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon. "These mandates are destabilizing the global auto industry while paving the way for cheap Chinese imports to dominate."
"American automakers and workers are paying the price for policies that ignore real consumer demand," Isaac continued.
The announcement is a stunning blow to Ford's ambitious plans to scale-up EV production and sales, and underscores the broader problems facing the EV industry. And it comes two months after Ford canceled plans to develop an all-electric three-row SUV due to slowing consumer demand and just days after Ford projected its EV business would lose $5 billion in 2024.
It is also a setback for the Biden-Harris administration and Democrats' climate plans to rapidly saturate the market with EVs and phase out traditional gas-powered cars. In May 2021, President Joe Biden and Slotkin participated in Ford's ceremony at the soon-to-be-idled plant in Dearborn to celebrate the rollout of the F-150 Lightning.
"This is an incredible facility," Biden remarked at the ceremony. "If we act to save the planet, we can create millions of good-paying jobs, generate significant economic growth and opportunity to raise the standard of living for people not only here, but around the world."
"The rollout of the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning reinforces what we've always known: there's no limit to what American ingenuity and manufacturing can accomplish, and Michigan's workers will always come through," Slotkin added after the ceremony.
Since then, the Biden-Harris administration has cracked down on gas cars—actions which Slotkin has voted in favor of—in a bid to achieve its goal of ensuring more than half of all car purchases are electric by 2030. Less than 10 percent of all car sales in the United States are electric, according to the latest data released this month by industry group the Alliance For Automotive Innovation.
Republicans, energy industry groups, and experts have blasted the administration's actions for reducing consumer choice and have labeled them a quasi-EV mandate. The issue has also taken center stage in the fight to win Michigan's Senate seat. Republican Senate candidate Rep. Mike Rogers has repeatedly targeted Slotkin over her votes supporting the administration's actions while Slotkin has sought to distance herself from EV mandate policies.
"This is the sad reality of Harris-Slotkin policies: Michiganders lose their jobs while China is enriched by their senseless EV mandates," Chris Gustafson, a spokesman for Rogers, told the Free Beacon. The Slotkin campaign didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
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