A single aluminum mill fire forced Ford to cut F-150 output for months

On 16 September 2025 a fire in the hot mill of Novelis's aluminum fabrication plant in Oswego, New York, knocked out a facility that supplies roughly 40 percent of the automotive aluminum sheet used in the United States. Novelis confirmed key lines would stay shut down at least into early 2026, with only a partial restart hoped for in the first quarter.

The disruption hit Ford the hardest because the F-150's body uses aluminum sheet. Ford cut its Dearborn Truck Assembly Plant, which builds the F-150, to about 530 units a day — under half its normal rate — through late October, idled the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center that builds the F-150 Lightning, and paused its Kentucky Truck Plant (Expedition and Navigator) for at least two weeks. Ford set up a special task force to manage the aluminum shortage.

Analysts estimated the lost production could cost Ford between $500 million and $1 billion in earnings, and Ford's stock fell about 6 percent once the disruption was made public. The F-Series is Ford's single most profitable product, so an aluminum shortage on that line is a direct hit to the company's bottom line.

The wider lesson is how concentrated the supply chain had become. US rolling mills run near capacity with little slack, and import tariffs of up to 50 percent make buying abroad expensive. One plant fire, in one company's one hot mill, became a national production halt across every major automaker — Ford, Stellantis and GM all suffered.