Ford Outlines Contingency Plan to Absorb Supplier’s Plant Fire

Ford Motor Co. executives are ramping up production of the company’s crucial F-150 and F-Series Super Duty trucks with the aim of making up about half of the expected output losses from a September fire at a key aluminum supplier.

Alongside their third-quarter earnings report Oct. 23, President and CEO Jim Farley and his team said they have launched a plan to have Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant in Michigan produce an additional 45,000 gas and hybrid trucks and the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville build an extra 5,000 units in 2026. That extra output will amount to roughly half of the 90,000 to 100,000 units Ford leaders estimate the company won’t be able to make this quarter because of the fire at Novelis Inc.’s Oswego, New York, plant Sept. 16.

“I’m very pleased with our team’s swift and decisive response to this challenge,” Farley said on a conference call with analysts and investors Oct. 23. “We immediately mobilized a dedicated crisis team [and] worked around the clock with Novelis to secure alternative aluminum sources for our operational lines and accelerate the plant’s recovery.”

The Michigan contingency plan will have all of Ford’s hourly workers at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center transfer to the adjacent Dearborn plant and be joined there by transfers from elsewhere in Southeast Michigan and some new hires. In Louisville, the company will add more than 100 workers and invest $60 million to speed up its line by one truck per hour.

Ford also is adding another 170 employees at supporting facilities in Dearborn. In all, the company will add up to 1,000 people to its payroll as it seeks to offset the impact of the Novelis fire and recover some production of its highly profitable flagship trucks.

Speaking to analysts, Farley and CFO Sherry House said the Novelis outage will cost Ford up to $1 billion of pre-tax and -interest earnings this year and next. Novelis officials expect to have the Oswego hot mill back up and running by late November or early December, Ford COO Kumal Galhotra said, and “then go through a quick ramp-up through December.”

With that in mind, Farley added that the emphasis on recovering lost production volumes will be on Ford rather than its supplier.

“If we have more availability of aluminum, the real lever for us is going to be our own upside—and we’re working through that,” he said. “This is still early days. We’ll have a lot more to update through this quarter and into next year’s guidance. But please understand that’s not Novelis’ restriction.”

Ford leaders provided the Novelis update alongside Q3 numbers that they said showed the company making progress on its cost and quality priorities. The company delivered nearly 1.16 million units during the three months that ended Sept. 30, an increase of 6% from the same period in 2024, and produced a net profit of $2.4 billion on revenues of $50.5 billion. House also said that the Trump administration’s recent tariff relief for some auto parts means that the company will lose “only” $1 billion in EBIT from tariffs this year, half its previous estimate.

Investors cheered the report and context from Ford executives. Shares of the company (Ticker: F) were up more than 10% to $13.60 in midday trading Oct. 24. That’s their highest level since July of last year and means the company’s market capitalization is now about $54 billion.