Ford Rouge Makes History Again With F-150 Lightning

From the very beginning of his career, not everyone at Ford has shared William Clay Ford Jr.’s affinity for the sprawling Rouge manufacturing complex built by his great-grandfather Henry Ford.

But with the battery-electric Ford F-150 Lightning pickup now rolling off the assembly line at the new Electric Vehicle Center tucked into “The Rouge,” the Ford Motor executive chairman is enjoying a moment of vindication. 

Three decades ago, there were executives who thought the company should walk away from the Rouge, which was built between 1917 and 1928, Ford says. But a new assembly plant, complete with an environmentally friendly “green” roof he championed, was built within the Rouge and opened in 2004 to build the company’s most important product, the F-150 pickup. 

The separate Rouge Electric Vehicle Center, which opened in 2020 and is undergoing a major expansion that will raise its production capacity to 150,000 units by mid-2023, is next to the Dearborn truck plant body shop and assembly building. 

Ford predicts the Lightning will be just as important to the company as the Model T.

Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center charging

“This is not a vehicle just for the elite,” he says, noting the Model T changed everything by making automobiles affordable, and the Lightning has the same kind of potential for bringing an EV to a broad audience.

“Today we celebrate the Model T moment for the 21^st century at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center,” Ford says. “The Rouge is where Ford perfected the moving assembly line, making it a fitting backdrop as we make history again. The stunning anticipation for F-150 Lightning is a credit to the work of our Ford engineers and designers, and the UAW team members who are building these trucks with pride.”

Bernie Ricke, president of UAW Local 600, which represents workers at the Rouge, says employees with a lot of seniority bid for the jobs in the new EV plant, giving it an experienced and enthusiastic workforce. 

Ford says there are 200,000 reservations for the Lightning. The automaker has invested $950 million and created 750 jobs at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center alone.

Ford’s Lightning-related investments total more than $1 billion, with 1,700 recently created jobs spread among five plants in the state, including the Van Dyke Electric Powertrain Center, where Lightning electric motors and electric transaxles are assembled, and the Rawsonville Components Plant, where Lightning batteries are assembled. 

Ford CEO Jim Farley notes the F-150 has been the world’s best-selling pickup truck for the past 45 years, and he predicts the automaker soon will have the world’s best-selling electric pickup.