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GM To Idle Five Factories In North America, Cut More Than 14,000 Jobs As It Focuses On Autonomous, Electric Vehicles (chicagotribune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Chicago Tribune: General Motors will cut up to 14,000 workers in North America and put five plants up for possible closure as it abandons many of its car models and restructures to cut costs and focus more on autonomous and electric vehicles. The reduction includes about 8,000 white-collar employees, or 15 percent of GM's North American white-collar workforce. Some will take buyouts while others will be laid off. Four factories in the U.S. and one in Canada could be shuttered by the end of 2019 if the automaker and its unions don't come up with an agreement to allocate more work to those facilities, GM said in a statement Monday. Another two will close outside North America. The company has marked a sedan plant in Detroit, a compact car plant in Ohio, and another assembly plant outside Toronto for possible closure. Also at risk are two transmission plants, one outside Detroit and another in Baltimore. GM CEO Mary Barra said the company is "still hiring people with expertise in software and electric and autonomous vehicles, and many of those who will lose their jobs are now working on conventional cars with internal combustion engines," reports Dallas News. "Barra said the industry is changing rapidly and moving toward electric propulsion, autonomous vehicles and ride-sharing, and GM must adjust with it."
The restructuring comes as the U.S. and North American auto markets are shifting away from cars toward SUVs and trucks. "In October, almost 65 percent of new vehicles sold in the U.S. were trucks or SUVs," reports Chicago Tribune. "It was about 50 percent cars just five years ago."
The restructuring comes as the U.S. and North American auto markets are shifting away from cars toward SUVs and trucks. "In October, almost 65 percent of new vehicles sold in the U.S. were trucks or SUVs," reports Chicago Tribune. "It was about 50 percent cars just five years ago."
I'm torn between feeling sorry for and laughing at the folks that voted for Trump because of his promises to keep factories open.
Its due to falling sales. If they were successfully focusing on electric they'd still need production capacity. Note part of their 'focus on electric' involves cancelling the Volt, probably their best selling vehicle with electric as the primary power source.
Yeah, I don't get it myself. But that is what is happening. Better profit margin on trucks and SUVs.
People are buying lots of cars, just not from US companies. Subaru, Toyota, Honda, BMW, Audi...
Steel and aluminum tariffs couldn't possibly affect GM profitability, now could they?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
CAFE requirements killed them. Nobody wants a 50 mpg car, they suck, no fun. But rules lawyers to the rescue.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
it's not exactly rocket science to retool a factory in 2018. Or put another way, why don't they have to retool the factories to keep up with demand? They're cutting 15,000 jobs. If they were just shifting product lines there'd be no job losses.
You won't see a lot of talk about jobs being automated away though because, well, the folks running the pro-corporate media aren't allowed to cover those stories too often; if at all. They're all owned by the same folks (everybody sits on everybody else's board of directors at that level) and as a rule you do not piss off your boss.
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Most SUVs are just cars with the unibody frame shaped like a bus, otherwise known as station wagons.. but ssh don't tell anyone they drive a station wagon or they will throw a fit. It makes sense really, why have a car with limited cargo space when you can make that car with cargo space for almost the same manufacturing cost and sell it at a higher price.
My Prius Hybrid is fun to drive and I get 54 MPG city and highway. It's not an SUV but a hatchback, which seem to be popular these days. Toyota also has the Rav 4, a small SUV, that comes as a hybrid, but not sure its MPG.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Haha yeah. Most SUVs are truck bodies, but don't tell any suburbanite they are driving a truck either.
Whether Trump is to blame or not, this news coupled with Ford's troubles have me wondering if a recession is nigh and how bad it'll be.
If it happens I'm sure Agolf Twitler and his sycophants will try to blame Obama.
And they won't have a clue what to do.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I've driven a pius, they suck.
I have a Lexus CT, aka the Prius Deluxe. It isn't terribly fast. . I thought the CVT would be a downer, but it is very responsive and the electric motor makes a sound similar to a turbocharger during hard accelerations. Cornering is tight and the car has boatloads of grip. It's one of the more fun cars I have owned, despite getting a big "meh" from most auto critics.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Seriously, like NUMMA, it would be useful to buy one of these plants with equipment that works. They could get MY, Semi, and perhaps Roadster up quickly. Nevada is supposed to gear up to 105 GW worth of Li-ion batteries.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"If you want to talk about spiraling debt, you should have seen it explode during the eight years of 0bama!" -Dishonest Republican problems again?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/01/15/obamas-federal-debt-grew-at-a-slower-rate-than-reagan-h-w-bush-or-w-bush/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/us/politics/trump-stock-market-national-debt-fact-check.html
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/
Yeah, I don't get what legal theory the union thinks they can use to prevent the plant closure. Nothing in Canadian law requires a company to continue unprofitable operations. And even if it did, it's still not going to happen unless someone pays for it.
Quite frankly, the union can STFU. They should be talking to GM about what happens to their members, not the media. And the various levels of government shouldn't be doing anything about this either beyond the already existing social programs available to everyone.
If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
This is an example of how companies die, often a slow and protracted death ...
GM (and Ford) say: people are not buying sedans, so we will be focusing on autonomous cars that are rented, ...etc.
Meanwhile, Tesla is making a killing selling sedans, and there is a long waiting list for its cars!
GM, Ford and Chrysler have the plants that can produce the majority of what goes into a car: chassis, assembly line, ...etc. An electric motor is not a big deal to make. Batteries are the challenge, but there are Japanese companies willing to sell them.
The conventional car companies are like BlackBerry a decade ago: they saw Apple launch the iPhone in 2007 and ignored it. They said no one wants touch screen, everyone wants a 5 day batter, everyone wants a keyboard, ...etc. Then they watched Google do the exact same thing in 2008, and ignored it. They were complacent, they were arrogant, they were incompetent.
Same thing happens in the auto sector now ...
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Electric car research is how you get investors excited and stock prices up. Perhaps some executives at GM are looking to cash out!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Or as I like to call them, "tall station wagons".
Does anyone know whether SUVs are exempted from the gas mileage requirements? If so, then that means they can "unfairly" be "better" than cars, in the eyes of the consumers.
I want a 50mpg truck.
That's probably not a reasonable request at this time. I think the best right now are the mid-sized turbo-diesel trucks at around 25 mpg. By 2025 we'll probably see lots of 50 mpg+ hybrid trucks, if you're willing to wait several years. Expect to pay through the nose for one.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
'Mall utility vehicles' are basically at standard height. Slow station wagons with offroad badging and decal packs.
Useful 4x4s are still what they've always been. Shitty commuters, generally worse work vehicles than their 2WD counterparts.
But good news for mountain fun, it's a golden age of used (trucks/jeeps/land cruisers) out there, many without a scratch, never wheeled.
Get over the need for security. It's an illusion at best. But buy a solid axle 4x4 for the weekends.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
GM invested millions of dollars into the EV1 program for their electric car in the 90s. They were positioned to be a global leader in EV technology...until those far sighted C-Suite geniuses at GM killed it.
That is how GM pursues electric cars.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact