Ford’s massive Oakville Assembly Complex is officially building Super Duty trucks, but September’s output shows how early the Canadian plant remains in its transformation. The facility produced 300 Super Duty models during the month, down from 350 in August and bringing its 2026 total to 903 trucks. Those numbers look tiny beside the volumes Ford ultimately expects from Oakville, which has been configured to support as many as 100,000 Super Duty trucks annually.
That gap is important. Oakville is not operating as a mature, full-volume truck plant yet. It is moving through a complicated launch after years of retooling, changing product plans and lengthy layoffs. What happens over the next several months will determine how quickly one of Canada’s most important auto plants becomes a meaningful part of Ford’s North American truck network.
The 300-Truck Figure Comes With an Important Catch
Oakville produced exactly 300 Super Duty trucks in September, according to production figures reported from Ford’s September data. That was 50 fewer than the 350 units assembled in August, making September the first month since Oakville began producing Super Duty models this spring in which output moved backward. Even so, September remained the plant’s second-highest month of Super Duty production so far. The sequence shows just how gradually the operation has been coming to life: six trucks were built in April, followed by 37 in May, 51 in June and 159 in July before output jumped to 350 in August.
Through the end of September, those monthly figures added up to 903 trucks. Industry reporting has characterized much of that output as launch or pre-production activity rather than the kind of mature, steady customer production associated with an established assembly line. Unifor Local 707 has similarly described Oakville as moving through its launch phase, with daily production expected to rise as additional milestones are completed.
September Was a Step Back After August’s Big Jump
The decline from 350 trucks in August to 300 in September amounts to a relatively small change in absolute terms, but it stands out because Oakville had previously been moving in one direction: upward. July production of 159 trucks had already been more than three times June’s 51-unit output. August then more than doubled July production, creating the first sign that significantly larger volumes were beginning to move through the newly configured line. September interrupted that progression.
That does not necessarily mean the launch is deteriorating. Vehicle plants commonly move through training, validation and equipment adjustments while a new product is introduced, and Unifor’s August update specifically warned members that challenges would accompany the final phases of Oakville’s launch. Plant Chairperson Jason Del Buono said the number of trucks built each day was expected to increase as launch milestones were completed. September’s 300-truck result is therefore better understood as one data point in an unfinished ramp rather than proof that Oakville has reached its normal production rate.
Oakville’s U.S. Counterparts Are Producing on a Completely Different Scale
The easiest way to understand how far Oakville still has to go is to compare it with Ford’s established Super Duty factories. In August, Kentucky Truck Plant produced 35,292 Super Duty trucks while Ohio Assembly produced another 3,621. Oakville built 350 during the same month. Kentucky alone therefore produced roughly 100 times as many Super Duty models as the Canadian facility while Oakville continued working through its launch.
Ford’s broader numbers show that demand and overall production are not the problem. The company produced 110,275 Super Duty trucks during the third quarter of 2026, a 4.4% increase from a year earlier and its strongest quarterly Super Duty production result in 19 years. Overall F-Series production reached 266,777 trucks during the quarter. That contrast makes Oakville’s 300-unit September especially striking: Ford is producing heavy-duty pickups in enormous volumes across North America, but the newest member of that manufacturing network is still operating at a fraction of its intended scale.
Oakville Has Been Waiting for a New Product Since 2024
The slow buildup carries particular weight in Oakville because thousands of workers have been waiting for the plant’s transformation to produce stable employment again. Regular production effectively stopped after the final Ford Edge rolled off the line in May 2024. Ford had originally been converting the complex to produce new three-row battery-electric vehicles, with those plans forming part of a major electrification investment in the Canadian operation.
The timetable changed dramatically in April 2024, when Ford delayed the planned electric-vehicle launch from 2025 until 2027. Three months later, the company announced that Oakville would instead become a third North American production site for the F-Series Super Duty. Unifor welcomed the switch partly because it was expected to bring workers back roughly a year sooner than the delayed EV plan. For employees who had spent an extended period on layoff, seeing hundreds of trucks leave the line in 2026 represents progress even if the production total remains far below what the factory is eventually designed to handle.
Ford Did Not Pick Super Duty Because Demand Was Weak
The decision to bring Super Duty production to Canada was presented from the beginning as a capacity expansion rather than a rescue plan for a struggling vehicle. When Ford announced the Oakville program in 2024, the company described Super Duty as one of its most popular and profitable products. Its existing Kentucky Truck and Ohio Assembly operations were running at full capacity, and Ford said Oakville could add production capacity for as many as 100,000 trucks annually.
That rationale still appears consistent with Ford’s recent results. Chief Financial Officer Sherry House said earlier in 2026 that Ford had not been able to supply all of the demand it had experienced for Super Duty, while the company’s record third-quarter production underscores the volume already moving through the network. Ford also reported 561,508 total F-Series sales in the United States through September. Oakville therefore is not being asked to create demand for an unfamiliar product. Its task is to become another high-volume source for an established truck family whose existing factories already produce tens of thousands of units per month.
Workers Are Being Recalled as Production Slowly Expands
The human side of the ramp-up can be seen in the recall notices being issued by Unifor Local 707. Ford recalled another 12 Oakville workers from indefinite layoff effective September 28 to meet manpower requirements at the facility. Another 19 were recalled on October 5, while the union announced on October 8 that 19 additional members were scheduled to return October 13 for what it described as launch-related programs. Those relatively small groups illustrate how the workforce is being rebuilt alongside production.
Ford originally said Super Duty production would secure approximately 1,800 jobs at Oakville and create about 150 additional jobs at Windsor Engine Complex as more V8 engines were required. The federal government’s current project record similarly identifies approximately 1,800 Oakville jobs as an expected result of the investment. For workers who have spent a prolonged period away from the line, the distinction between 300 trucks and full production is consequently more than an industrial statistic. Higher sustained volume is closely connected to how quickly additional employees can return to regular work.
The Investment Behind 300 Trucks Is Measured in Billions
The September total appears even smaller when viewed against the scale of the capital being committed to Oakville. Ford’s 2024 Super Duty expansion announcement outlined approximately US$3 billion in investments across the program, including US$2.3 billion for assembly and integrated stamping operations at Oakville. By 2026, Ford Canada described approximately C$5 billion in previously announced investment as having transformed Oakville into the company’s Canadian Super Duty assembly operation and introduced Ford Canada’s first in-house stamping operations.
There is significant public money attached to the project as well. An Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada record lists a federal contribution agreement valued at C$464.5 million for work related to refurbishing Oakville for Super Duty production and establishing the onsite stamping facility. The government record identifies annual production of up to 100,000 units as an expected project result. Against that planned scale, a 300-truck month is clearly a starting point rather than the economic outcome expected from the finished factory.
Ford’s New Unifor Deal Puts Even More Pressure on a Successful Ramp
Oakville’s launch is also tied to commitments made in the new three-year collective agreement between Ford and Unifor, ratified in July 2026. Ford announced C$1.25 billion in planned Canadian manufacturing investment over the life of the agreement. That includes C$700 million for Essex Engine Plant operations and C$550 million previously planned for Oakville. The agreement covers more than 5,000 Ford-Unifor employees across the company’s Canadian facilities.
Unifor described one of the contract’s major achievements as a pathway to “Full Employment” at Oakville and said the agreement includes a route for laid-off Oakville members to return to work. Employees also secured general wage increases totalling 9% over the three-year agreement, alongside pension, benefit and bonus improvements. Those promises make production growth particularly important. A successful Super Duty launch is no longer simply about getting Ford another source of profitable pickups; it is intertwined with employment expectations negotiated for a workforce that has endured an unusually long industrial transition.
Oakville Is Supposed to Become More Than Another Conventional Truck Plant
Ford’s plans for the facility extend beyond simply duplicating what Kentucky and Ohio already do. When the Super Duty program was announced, Ford said the fully retooled Oakville operation would eventually support multi-energy versions of the next-generation Super Duty. Unifor said Oakville was expected to be the initial sole source for those multi-energy models later in the decade, while conventional versions would be produced first.
That future role helps explain why Ford installed an integrated stamping operation and emphasized flexibility in the plant’s redesign. It also makes it important not to judge the entire Oakville investment by its first several months of output. Ford is effectively establishing a new Canadian manufacturing base for a truck line expected to evolve over the remainder of the decade. The automaker has not publicly detailed every future electrified Super Duty powertrain in the sources supporting this report, so claims about exactly what form those models will take would be premature. What has been confirmed is that Oakville is intended to play a central role.
The Next Milestone Is When Hundreds of Trucks Become Thousands
For now, 300 trucks in September tells two stories at once. It shows that the Oakville Assembly Complex is genuinely building Super Duty models after more than two years of disruption, construction and changing plans. It also shows that the operation remains nowhere close to the scale Ford envisioned when it committed to an additional 100,000 units of annual capacity. Oakville is still a launch story rather than a full-volume production story.
The numbers over the final months of 2026 will therefore be much more revealing than any single September result. A sustained increase would demonstrate that new tooling, stamping operations, workforce recalls and line-speed improvements are coming together. Continued production in the hundreds would raise more questions about the timetable for reaching meaningful volume. Unifor’s latest description remains optimistic: the plant is progressing through launch milestones, with daily truck production expected to rise. After 903 Super Duty trucks through September, the clearest signal of success will be when Oakville’s monthly totals begin looking less like pre-production figures and more like those of a major North American assembly plant.
