Recently, full production of F-150 Lightning trucks began at the advanced Rouge Electric Vehicle Center within Ford’s historic Rouge Complex.

 

While the path to the automotive industry’s all-electric vehicle future is mostly uncertain and packed with challenges like high costs and supply chain issues, Ford leads the pack with electrifying innovation in the F-150 Lightning. The Ford Motor Company is perhaps more aware than most automakers of consumers’ strong desire to shift to all-electric vehicles.

 

Bill Ford, the chairman of the Ford Motor Company, spoke to ABC’s "GMA 3" (Good Morning America) on Tuesday about the company's switch to developing models for an all EV fleet. Ford boasted that its electric vehicles, such as the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning pickup truck, have already been sold out.

 

"We are really betting the company," he told "GMA 3." "I'm so excited by the response that we've had to it."

 

Ford Motor plans to have half of its fleet be EVs by 2030 and invested $5 billion in EVs this year, Ford said.

 

Even beyond the F-150 Lightning itself, the manufacturing technology where the pickup is built at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center is just as innovative. It is the only Ford plant without the usual in-floor conveyor lines, instead operating with robotic Autonomous Guided Vehicles to move F-150 Lightning trucks from workstation to other areas in the plant.

 

These Autonomous Guided Vehicles offer more flexibility in the plant for additional production efforts, quality control, and vehicle customizations, to mention just a few advantages. And most changes can be made quickly without the constraints of a typical production line that needs the installation of floor chains, moving mats, conveyors and overhead cranes. The plant also uses cobots, or collaborative robots, that work side-by-side with people without any safety cages needed. These cobots help with tasks that would be ergonomically challenging for employees, while also keeping employees safe.

 

Overall though, some experts suggest that the roadmap to a complete EV adoption by customers has its issues. Supply chain issues have made it harder for vehicle companies to develop the components for the vehicles as fast as other cars, motor vehicle experts said.

 

For instance, the nation’s evolving charging infrastructure has left many communities without any option to power an EV. But Bill Ford stated the company has been working its way through it, and insisted that the market for EVs would be stronger in the coming months and years.

 

Bill Ford noted that EVs have fewer moving parts than their gas-powered counterparts and that helps to lower the maintenance costs for customers.

 

"This is not a luxury vehicle at the high end of the market, where only a few people can do it. We're bringing EVs into the range of the average person," he said.