The Ford F-150 Lightning will resume production on March 13 

The Ford Motor Company plans to restart production of its electric pickup, the F-150 Lightning, on March 13 - more than a month after a battery issue caused one of the vehicles to catch fire due to a voltage issue.

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In an interview with Trade Algo on Thursday, the automaker told the network that the production timeline will allow its battery supplier, SK On, to build up production and deliver battery packs to the Michigan plant that manufactures the truck at the end of the week.

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While the vehicle was being charged, a fire broke out in a holding lot on February 4 during a pre-delivery quality check while it was being tested. As a result, Ford has suspended production of the vehicles and has issued a stop-shipment order to dealers. In a request for details of the issue that caused the vehicle to catch fire or of the solution that was implemented, Ford declined to do so. Engineering determined there was no evidence of a charging fault, the company said previously.

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“We will continue to apply our learnings from the last few weeks and work with SK On’s team to ensure that we continue to deliver high-quality battery packs - down to the battery cells - to our customers in the weeks ahead. During the construction of REVC, we will continue to hold on to the already-produced vehicles while we work on engineering and parts updates,” Ford told Trade Algo in a statement.

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Last week, Ford announced that SK had resumed the production of battery cells at a plant in Georgia, however, the automaker would continue to extend the downtime at its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center, which produces the F-150 Lightning, at least through the end of this week.

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Considering that it is the first mainstream electric pickup truck to hit the market and is a major launch for Ford, the Ford F-150 Lightning is being closely watched by investors. The battery issue is yet another in a long line of "execution issues" that Ford CEO Jim Farley detailed last month to investors when he discussed the automaker's earnings for its fourth quarter.

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When the F-150 Lightning was revealed by Ford in May 2021, the company initially opened customer reservations for the vehicle. Prior to Ford temporarily closing the process in order to align production with expected demand, more than 200,000 reservations had been placed.

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Since the all-electric trucks went on sale last year, Ford has sold fewer than 20,000 of the vehicles, according to a report released earlier Thursday.