F-150 Production Halted, Ford Temporarily Lays Off 9,700 Workers

Welcome to a new week! It’s Monday, February 5, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.

Ford Is Gearing Up To Make A Lot More F-150 Lightnings

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1st Gear: Ford Halts F-150 Production

It’s been a tough start to the new year for fans of the Ford F-150. After the Blue Oval announced it was slashing production of the electric Lightning variant, the Michigan automaker has now revealed that it halted production of the 2024 F-150 pickup for more than five days in January.

According to a report from the Detroit Free Press, Ford stopped production of the 2024 truck between January 25 and January 31, 2024 at its Dearborn Truck Plant. Production of America’s best-selling truck was also stopped at the Kansas City Assembly Plant from January 25 until February 1. The Free Press reports:

“Production has resumed after being paused temporarily because of a supplier parts concern,” [Ford spokeswoman Jessica Enoch] said. “We are vigilant about ensuring that the vehicles our customers receive are built with the quality they expect and we are taking appropriate actions to deliver on that commitment.”

Enoch said Lightning production was also stopped Jan. 25 through Jan. 31 because ICE production was stopped at Dearborn Truck; the Dearborn Truck paint shop services both the internal combustion and electric trucks.

During the shutdown, United Auto Workers union employees working at both facilities were laid off temporarily. In Kansas, 4,500 workers were affected while the figure in Dearborn was around 5,200. However, workers are now back on site and regular shifts have returned at both facilities.

The 2024 F-150 was first unveiled last year and marks a mid-cycle refresh for the Ford truck. In the new models you’ll find performance upgrades, new driver assistance tech and features that can even tell if your truck is being stolen.

2nd Gear: Apple Takes Self-Driving Car Testing Seriously

It’s no secret that Apple is working on a car of its own. The Californian tech giant has had a four–wheeled creation in the works for years and has been spied testing its autonomous driving tech out on the streets of California. Now, it turns out that the iPhone maker has been ramping up its testing programs in recent months.

A new report from Wired looked into the hours self-driving car companies spent testing their models last year, and Apple has seriously stepped things up compared with 12 months ago. According to Wired, paperwork from the California DMV shows that Apple almost quadrupled the number of miles it covered on public roads in 2023 compared with 2022. The site reports:

The data covers December 2022 to November 2023. The majority of the testing miles were in the second half of the reporting period, with miles tested peaking in August at 83,900.

Apple’s testing totals are well below those of more advanced autonomous vehicle developers’, though the state’s reporting guidelines make them difficult to compare directly. Waymo drove 3.7 million testing miles in California with a safety driver behind the wheel and 1.2 million testing miles with no one behind the wheel. The company drove more than 1.6 million additional miles with passengers in the car, according to separate government documents.

In total, Apple tested its tech on the road across 452,744 miles of Californian highway in 2023.

According to Bloomberg, Apple’s car-shaped ambitions have somewhat changed in recent years. When the project started, the company reportedly hoped to create an electric vehicle that could drive itself anywhere and everywhere. However, that changed last year and now Apple is hoping to create “automated driving-assistance features more in line with those offered by automakers like Tesla, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz,” reports Wired.

3rd Gear: Tesla Pays Up For Dumping Hazardous Chemicals

Last week, local authorities in California threatened legal action against Tesla after they claimed it had been dumping hazardous chemicals in an unsafe manner. Now, the electric vehicle maker has agreed to pay $1.5 million for mishandling hazardous chemicals such as paint, diesel and used batteries.

According to a report from Automotive News, the U.S.-based automaker has settled the lawsuit that was brought by 25 local authorities from across California. The site explains:

The settlement was approved by Judge Jayne Lee on Thursday in San Joaquin County state court, just two days after the counties sued claiming Tesla improperly labeled waste, like paint materials, used batteries and diesel fuel, at its facilities across the state, and sent hazardous materials to landfills that cannot accept such materials.

The company, which did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, agreed to pay a $1.3 million civil penalty and $200,000 to reimburse the counties for the costs of the investigation. It also agreed to take steps to properly handle waste and hire a third-party auditor to examine its waste practices over five years.

As well as paying the fine, which is worth less than a 5000th of Tesla’s 2023 profits, the automaker has agreed to correctly screen and quarantine any hazardous chemicals it disposes of.

Rather worryingly, this isn’t the first time the supposedly eco-minded company has been caught mishandling hazardous chemicals. In 2019, Tesla reached a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over alleged federal hazardous waste violations. As a result of that case, it pledged to properly manage waste and paid a fine of $31,000, reports Automotive News.

4th Gear: Volvo Is Doing Just Fine

Fear swept the Jalopnik office last week when it emerged that Volvo was offloading its shares in Polestar as both firms were struggling. Could it all be going wrong for the only real purveyor of station wagons? It turns out no, and things are going just fine for the creator of the V60. Phew.

According to sales figures shared by Reuters, Volvo shifted 10 percent more cars in January than it managed during the same month in 2023. The boost was helped by a 40 percent increase in sales of electric models in Europe. Reuters reports:

Volvo Cars, which is majority-owned by China’s Geely Holding (0175.HK), opens new tab, said in a statement sales of fully electric cars were in all up 17%, to account for 17% of total sales. In China and the United States, they were down.

Reuters explains that Volvo’s sales in Europe were up eight percent, while in the US they remained “unchanged”. The biggest winner around the world came in China, where sales were up 36 percent. That’s probably because of the launch of Volvo’s rad electric minivan, the EM90, but Volvo hasn’t said.

Sales of Volvo’s Recharge models, which includes battery-powered and hybrid models, dropped three percent in January. The company’s latest sales figures impacted its share value, with Volvo’s value dipping one percent in early trade.