Nolte: Another Day, Another Electric Vehicle Battery Fire

Ford Motor has been forced to suspend production on its electric F-150 Lightning pickup due to a battery fire.

Apparently, the electric pickup was sitting in a holding lot being charged when *poof*.

Days after the fire, “Ford suspended production and issued a stop-shipment of the vehicles to dealers,” reports CNBC, adding, “Ford said it is not aware of any incidents of this issue in vehicles that have already been delivered to customers and dealers.”

Ford said Friday its battery supplier, SK, has started building battery cells again at a plant in Georgia but it will take time “to ensure they are back to building high-quality cells and to deliver them to the Lightning production line.”

“The teams worked quickly to identify the root cause of the issue,” Ford said in a statement Friday. “We agree with SK’s recommended changes in their equipment and processes for SK’s cell production lines.”

Back to building high-quality cells?

Back to?

When exactly did the lapse in building high-quality cells occur, and for how long did it last? How many truck batteries were produced during this lapse?

What about those pickups built during this lapse currently sitting in showrooms and garages?

To my broader point…

• We had a battery fire in January.
• We had an electric car battery fire in October.
• Battery fire in September.
• Battery fire in August that injured 38 when the apartment complex caught fire.
• We had an electric bus battery fire in July.
• Battery fire in June of 2022.
• Battery fire in August 2021.

Trust me, that list is far from exhaustive. Those are the results of a quick search, nothing more, and those results are enough to make the following point…

The battery in an electric car is where the energy is stored. Therefore, the battery is the equivalent of a normal car’s gas tank. So let me ask you this… What if this many gas tanks had exploded over the same time frame, the past 18 months or so? You think we might pause the whole idea of the internal combustion engine until this potentially disastrous problem is worked out?

For the record, this is the first time I’ve written anything about these battery fires. I’m no alarmist. I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. But it was this news about the Ford pickup where I finally said enough. There is simply no way I would ever buy an electric car. There are plenty of other reasons not to buy an electric car, but the idea of the battery going up in flames — which is happening way too often —is a total disqualifier. You see…

Like a lot of people, my garage is attached to my house. In fact, my garage is directly below my bedroom.

Think about this… For a hundred years, people have been driving around with a big gasoline tank and then parking it at home or work. When was the last time we heard about a car’s gas tank just going up in flames?

It doesn’t happen. I park that 25 gallons of gas under my bedroom every night and never give it a thought.

The anti-science zeal to push us to electric vehicles appears to be getting ahead of safety. Politics has priority over people.

If you don’t believe me, I ask you again to imagine the political and media fallout of the same number of gas tanks catching fire over the same amount of time.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.