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Posts Tagged ‘Big Three’

GM to Boost Volt Production

General Motors Co. plans to boost production for its range-extending electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, to 16,000 vehicles this year, and 60,000 in 2012, the company said today.

The Detroit carmaker had originally planned to build 15,000 Volts this year, and 45,000 in 2012, but strong demand for the battery-powered car has prompted the company to churn out more.

The announcement comes just two weeks before a four-week shutdown at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, where GM builds the Volt, for retooling.

Ford Offers Buyouts to All UAW Workers

 DETROIT, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N) said on
Monday it is offering its 41,000 U.S. factory workers buyouts
and early retirement offers in a bid to reduce its payroll
costs as it aims to return to profit by 2011.

 The buyouts mark the second round of such offers for Ford
workers represented by the United Auto Workers union this year.
About 1,000 workers took Ford's earlier offer in July.

 While Ford was the only U.S. automaker to have avoided
bankruptcy in the past year, its relative success has
complicated efforts to win concessions from its major union.

 Ford workers have until late January to accept the offer,
which includes payouts of up to $70,000 cash for newer hires to
$60,000 cash for veterans already eligible for retirement.

 "Despite a strengthening in our business, we still have a
surplus in employees," said Ford spokesman Mark Truby.

 Ford did not provide a target for how many workers it
expected would take the buyout offers.

In a refreshing change, the Big Mitten wins

Two industrial icons, one of them partially crippled, shined on Michigan today. Bankrupt General Motors Corp. said it would locate its new small car plant at Orion Township, a move that will save a few thousand manufacturing jobs and keep an endangered stamping facility in Pontiac alive — even at the cost of steep local tax abatements.

And General Electric Co. says it will open a next-generation high-tech facility in Van Buren Township and create up to 1,200 new jobs, many of them paying $100,000 a year or more. The GE gambit holds greater symbolic importance, mainly because its proposed location lends credibility and heft to a planned “Aerotropolis” along the I-94 corridor between Willow Run and Detroit Metropolitan airports. Even North Carolina’s vaunted Research Triangle languished for years until a major corporate player — IBM? — became the kind of lead anchor tenant that wooed others.

The announcements are badly needed wins for beleaguered Michigan, its strained tax base and its embattled governor, Jennifer Granholm, holder of the worst economic record of any sitting governor in the nation. After months of nothing but bad news, GM and GE today delivered the industrial equivalent of manna from heaven — or evidence of the invisible hand of President Barack Obama’s auto task force and Treasury Department working a little magic.

Ford to Get Retooling Loans

Ford Motor Co. will today become the first Detroit automaker to receive loans from the U.S. Department of Energy to help cover the cost of developing and building more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, according to people familiar with the decision.

In its application to the Energy Department, Ford said it would use the money to help cover the cost of retooling some of its U.S. truck plants to produce small cars from Europe.

That would include the planned conversion of the former Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, MI.

Chrysler Files For Bankruptcy

Washington — The White House will force Chrysler LLC to file for bankruptcy protection today, after talks between the Treasury Department and the Auburn Hills automaker’s creditors failed last night to reach an agreement.

“This will be quick, it will be efficient, it is designed to deal with those last few holdouts” who blocked an out-of-court restructuring, President Barack Obama said in a televised announcement from the White House. Obama pledged the bankruptcy filing would not disrupt the company’s operations or the lives of its workers.

The president had harsh words for the group of investment companies and hedge funds that balked at a debt restructuring. “I do not stand with them,” Obama said, calling them “speculators” who sought to endanger Chrysler’s future for their own benefit.

People are Leaving Michigan at an Alarming Rate

Joe LaCross drives American cars. Always has. Born and raised in the blue-collar suburbs of Detroit, this son of a welder wouldn’t dream of rolling past his autoworker neighbors in a Toyota. But not long ago the 38-year-old pulled into the driveway of his Sterling Heights home in a vehicle wreaking even more havoc in his home state.

A moving van.

“I grew up here,” said LaCross, as he packed to move to Florida in search of a job. “My family is here. My wife’s family is here. I love everything about Michigan.

“Everything,” he said, picking up a plastic storage tub, “except the economy.”

People are leaving Michigan at a staggering rate. About 109,000 more people left Michigan last year than moved in. It is one of the worst rates in the nation, quadruple the loss of just eight years ago. The state loses a family every 12 minutes, and the families who are leaving — young, well-educated high-income earners — are the people the state desperately needs to rebuild.

“I never thought I’d leave,” said LaCross, looking around his empty Michigan home. “What happens now?”