Ford Spending $3B to Build More Super Duty Trucks
Barely three months after Ford CEO Jim Farley admitted to investors that the company couldn’t meet demand for its redesigned Super Duty truck, the Blue Oval has announced a solution: A third assembly plant in North America.
That lucky plant is at Oakville Assembly Complex in Ontario, about 340 miles northeast of Detroit and about 22 miles southwest of Toronto. Starting in 2026, Oakville will build up to 100,000 Super Dutys per year. Ford has secured approximately 1800 jobs at Oakville Assembly and is adding 150 jobs at the Windsor Engine Complex, which builds V-8 engines for the trucks. The cost to install assembly and stamping operations at Oakville? $2.3 billion.
![2023 Ford Super Duty F-350 Limited 6.7 turbodiesel](https://hagerty-media-prod.imgix.net/2022/09/2023-Ford-Super-Duty-F-350-Limited_15-1.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=crop&h=427&ixlib=php-3.3.0&w=640)
“Super Duty is a vital tool for businesses and people around the world, and even with our Kentucky Truck Plant and Ohio Assembly Plant running flat out, we can’t meet the demand,” says Farley.
Most of the money may be going to Oakville, but not all of it. Ford plans to invest a total of $3 billion into solving the issue of Super Duty production, and some of the remaining $700 million is going to the 10 U.S. plants that support production of the truck by building components.
![2023 Ford Super Duty skid loader](https://hagerty-media-prod.imgix.net/2023/06/2023-Ford-Super-Duty_Pro-Trailer-Hitch-Assist_01.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=crop&h=426&ixlib=php-3.3.0&w=640)
The transmission plant in Sharonville, Ohio, gets $24M and additional overtime. Rawsonville Components Plant, which builds transmission oil pumps, air induction systems, ignition coils, carbon canisters, and fuel pumps, gets $1M and 20 new jobs (as of April 2024, the plant employed 756 people, approximately 656 of which are paid by the hour). The operation in Sterling, Michigan, that makes rear axles for the F-250 (and for the Expedition, Navigator, and Mustang) gets 50 new jobs (as of April 2024, it employed about 2313 employees, including 2084 hourly ones).
This isn’t the first time that Ford has spent a billion or more on its newest Super Duty. In November of last year, Ford was scrambling to address recalls—it had the most of any automotive manufacturer through 2022 and into the first half of 2023, as Ford Authority writes. It was so desperate that it shut down Kentucky Truck (for as long as three days at a time) to bring hundreds of quality inspectors, suppliers, and engineers into the plant. The idea was to fix issues before trucks shipped to customers. Farley revealed, in another investor call, that he spent over a billion addressing quality issues on the Super Duty alone.
![2023 Ford Super Duty F-550](https://hagerty-media-prod.imgix.net/2022/09/2023-Ford-Super-Duty_F-550-Chassis-Cab_F-450-XL.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=crop&h=427&ixlib=php-3.3.0&w=640)
Ford had planned to build electric vehicles at Oakville in 2025, a project which would have added 1400 jobs, switched the name of the site to Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex, and allowed union-represented employees to return in 2027. Those people can now return in 2026, thanks to ravenous demand for the Super Duty, and the site appears to be keeping its current name.
A final tidbit of information in the press release lies in the phrase “multi-energy technology.” Ford appears to be considering hybridization for its cash cow—no surprise, given that the light-duty F-Series has incorporated the tech for years now. Ford isn’t saying anything about a timeline, however, and since it just rehauled the Super Duty for the 2023 model year, we wouldn’t expect a hybrid model for another several years, at least.
Are you, or someone you know, among the 500,000 people Ford estimates to be either directly or indirectly involved in producing its trucks? We’re curious to hear what you think about these changes.
![2023 Ford Super Duty feed](https://hagerty-media-prod.imgix.net/2023/06/2023-Ford-Super-Duty_Onboard-Scales_01.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=crop&h=426&ixlib=php-3.3.0&w=640)
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The most “telling” fact in this story (to me) comes in the paragraph where it’s explained that they spent a billion trying to figure out how to build trucks that wouldn’t get recalled – just over a year ago. So now they’ll spend more billions to cram more trucks onto dealer lots. Excuse me, but if you needed to spend a billion bucks “addressing quality issues”, maybe you didn’t do a good job of figuring out how to build the darned things in the first place. As a consumer, should I trust that opening a new plant to speed up producing these things is going to result in a quality product? Hardly a confidence boost, IMO.
Oakville has been a Ford plant since 1953.
Lots of government money has gone into it in various deals in the last 20 years. The delaying of conversion to full EV production was not sitting well with various stakeholders. This seems like a bit of a kiss-and-make-up.
The truck news is good news, but there is a lot of layers of money to follow on this one if one is questioning “why Oakville?”.
This is great news as more and more people/investors realize the EV mandate is not going to work. This will save American vehicle manufacturers and keep giving consumers their choice!
At least there will be more American workers. But Quality is Job #2 at Ford.
WTF Canada??? F you Ford!
With all the quality issues at Ford, and my present problems with our fleet of Super Duty Fords we are done with Ford no matter how much money they throw at them. We have recently changed to Ram and have received our 25 new 2500 Heavy Duties and are please with them. The quality is better and it looks as if they were over inspected by the quality mark’s on them. The delivery even impressed our supplying dealer.Ram has really upped their game in this market.
I agree 100%. Even with some shakiness regarding Stellantis thrown in, I’m still much more sold on Rams than any other make – especially Ford. I’m seriously thinking of replacing my ’02 Dodge with a new (or at least newER) Ram 2500. If I stumbled across the right rig/deal, I might just sign the check and ask Mrs. DUB6’s forgiveness later! 🙄