Slashdot Mirror
Ford: We're Canceling $1.6 Billion Mexico Facility, Investing In Electric and US Plant (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Today at the Flat Rock Assembly Plant, Ford Motor Company CEO Mark Fields unveiled a large-scale electric vehicle initiative that will run through the company's next five years. Ford plans to invest $4.5 billion in electric vehicle production by 2020, and the company said it will produce 13 new electric vehicles, including a Mustang, an F-150, police cars, and a Transit Custom van. Additionally, Fields revealed that Ford would be canceling a previously announced $1.6 billion-production facility in Mexico. Instead, the company wants to invest $700 million in the existing Flat Rock facility, generating 700 new jobs focused on EV and autonomous initiatives at that location, according to Ford. Ford described seven of the 13 upcoming EVs during its press conference today. The F-150 Hybrid will be available by 2020 in North America and the Middle East, and Fields noted it'll be powerful enough to stand-in for on-site generators in a pinch. The Mustang Hybrid will deliver "V8 power and even more low-end torque" according to Ford; it too is intended for a 2020 release. Generally, electric motors are well suited to applications where you want a lot of immediate torque, so their presence should work well in a light duty truck like the F-150. Among the other notable vehicles highlighted, Ford is planning a fully electric small SUV that can "deliver an estimated range of at least 300 miles" by 2020. The company also wants to produce an autonomous vehicle "designed for commercial ride hailing or ride sharing" in North America by 2021.
I have read the linked article and article in WSJ and WashPost. There appears to be some confusion in the Ars Technica article, and in the summary. The investment in the Flat Rock Michigan plant is to create new electric vehicles, to maintain employment for the Ford Escort employees, as Ford continues its plan to move the Escorts to 100% in Mexico. This is similar to the November story, when Ford moved mature Lincoln manufacturing from Louisville KY to Mexico, but invested in a new vehicle manufacturing in KY rather than close the plant.
From the Post https://www.washingtonpost.com... :
"At Ford, Joseph Hinrichs, president of Ford in the Americas, said the decision to produce the newly announced cars in the United States was made recently and without consulting people connected to Trump. Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford shared the news with Trump in a phone call Tuesday morning, though the details of that call were not immediately available.
While the Ford Focus will soon be produced south of the border, Hinrichs said the 3,500 workers who currently make the car at its production facility in Wayne, Mich., will instead build two yet-to-be-named vehicles, and thus those jobs will stay in place."
Trump seems very talented at getting his name into headlines about decisions that have nothing to do with him
Gently reply
Um, it wasn't W that changed it this, it was his dad.
Every large corporation considers the possible outcomes of a presidential election and make contingency plans based upon them. In this case it was very clear:
Hillary wins -> jobs go to Mexico
Trump wins -> jobs stay in the US
Meanwhile, a city in Mexico just lost $1.6B of direct investment
Told you Mexico would pay for that wall.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I thought Ford was the only one who didn't take a bailout? GM and Chrysler got billions shoveled at them, but Ford didn't take any of the 2008 money...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Trump seems very talented at getting his name into headlines about decisions that have nothing to do with him
Except for the part in the article where Ford's CEO is quoted as saying: "We're encouraged by the pro-growth policies of President Trump," Fields said when announcing the investment shift from Mexico to the Flat Rock facility. Earlier in the day, the CEO told CNN he views the investment as a "vote of confidence" in the president-elect.
I have read the linked article and article in WSJ and WashPost
OK, so did you miss that part, ignore it, or what?
Uh, no. Ford said they are still moving some car production to Mexico, but to a plant already there. They aren't building the new plant, because demand for smaller vehicles they make in Mexico (Ford Focus compacts were going to the new facility but will now be made in Hermosillo, Mexico) are down so the factory wasn't needed. They are taking the savings from the new plant and expanding in Michigan, but the new production there was already going there. The electric cars weren't ever going to be made in Mexico. The shift of the Focus to Mexico was announced in April and it's still happening. The only thing that's changed is that the lowered demand of small cars from Mexico is down while larger cars from Michigan is up.
It's good for America, but it's not solely due to Trump (or Obama). It's simple economics.
would love to buy another small truck like the old 1992 Mazda B2200 I owned, which was good enough to throw a few sheets of plywood into, but could drive around for two weeks or more on a single tank of gas.
Ford is about to reintroduce a new Ford Ranger into the US market. It's coming soon.
There's just one small problem: Obama has used less executive orders than any other president in 40 years. Even now, in his final days, when presidents traditionally use a lot of them - passing things their base will like and forcing the other side to be the assholes that repeal it because their base don't like them.
Obama only really began using executive orders after 4 years of the most obstructionist congress in history. The guy REALLY tried to do things by working with congress, they refused to work with him. They took a vow to undermine him at every step and pursued that vow with such alacrity that some of their actions bordered on high treason (that letter to Iran almost certainly crossed the line actually). That was where Obama, finally, started using them as the only means to get ANYTHING done while in office.
What else did you expect when over a 4 year period the republicans would not cooperate on ANYTHING -even things they had been clamoring to do for DECADES were resisted if it was proposed by HIM.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *