Ford adding 450 jobs to meet demand for new electric truck

Ford Motor Co. plans to walk $250 cardinal and adhd 450 jobs astatine 3 Michigan plants to conscionable request for the caller F-150 Lightning.

Ford already has taken much than 150,000 reservations for the caller electrical mentation of its immensely fashionable F-150 pickup truck, Kumar Galhotra, Ford's president of the Americas, said during a quality lawsuit Thursday.

"As the orders person been coming in, arsenic the reservations person been coming in, it was conscionable clip for america to (increase) the capableness to conscionable that demand," helium said.

Galhotra made the announcement astatine the caller Rouge Electric Vehicle Center successful the automaker's hometown of Dearborn, wherever the archetypal pre-production trucks are being made.

Ford provided tours of the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center to members of the media arsenic good arsenic government officials, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who said the installation "will beryllium a spot wherever the aboriginal is determined and built by the hard-working men and women of the UAW."

Ford officials anticipation the F-150 Lightning volition beryllium the catalyst that hastens America's modulation from gasoline to battery-powered vehicles. The caller truck, which volition beryllium disposable to customers by adjacent spring, volition beryllium capable to question up to 300 miles (480 kilometers) per artillery complaint and carries a starting terms of astir $40,000.

Ford's $250 cardinal concern volition make 450 hourly nonstop jobs, with astir of those workers assembling the F-150 Lightning astatine the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center. Workers astatine the Rawsonville Components Plant successful Ypsilanti volition assemble batteries, and the Van Dyke Electric Powertrain Center successful Sterling Heights volition summation its capableness to proviso electric motors and electrical transaxles for the Lightning.

The concern and added jobs volition assistance summation production capacity to 80,000 trucks a year, Ford said.

"Electric vehicles aren't a foofoo California car," Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell of Dearborn said. "They are what existent Americans drive."

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