Dear Employees,
The auto industry is going through a period of unprecedented change. A dramatic U.S. economic slowdown and auto industry contraction leaves Chrysler — like other automakers — to face difficult issues and decisions.
Our worldwide sales are down 14 percent, year to date — even considering increases in Canada, Mexico and international markets.
Our plan for 2008 has been aggressively conservative, allowing us to be better positioned than some of our competitors for the current slowdown. We continue to exceed goals and financial plans, and we are better positioned than we were last year. We are focused on improving our business today.
That's why we must act now to become better aligned with the shift towards smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. In order to meet those market challenges, we will be making volume-related manufacturing reductions at two of our North American assembly plants.
The St. Louis Assembly Plant South will be idled indefinitely, effective Oct. 31, due to volume declines in the total minivan vehicle segment.
Operations at the St. Louis Assembly Plant North, where full-size trucks are built, will be reduced from two shifts to one, effective Sept. 2.
We are committed to working with the UAW to address these reductions in a socially responsible manner. As we have done in the past, the UAW and management leadership will hold employee meetings to review the special program offerings at affected locations. We are committed to providing employees with this information so they are able to make appropriate decisions.
We also remain committed to our bread-and-butter Dodge Ram pickup, and Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans. We believe there is a strong and viable pickup truck market, and our minivans have held their leadership share in a shrinking market.
We are clearly in a challenging environment, but by tackling the difficult challenges head-on, we are taking the steps to return Chrysler to profitability for the long term.
Sincerely,
Bob
P.S. Since Chrysler is committed to employee welfare, you may find you have more leisure time after August…..
Watch for more announcements, as a guess.
Should be interesting to see the June sales numbers in light of this announcement from yesterday, shouldn’t it?
As in monthly sales, I mean, not “14% drop year to date”.
It’s a shame Chrysler decided to idle the wrong minivan plant. They should have jumped at the chance to stick it to the CAW by idling the Windsor plant, especially now that the plunging dollar has made it cheaper to assemble cars in the U.S. than in Canada.
“In the coming months we plan to switch to a bizzarely normal approach to product development. “
There is that line again “aggressively conservative”! What does that mean? Many of your competitors, save GM, are already better positioned than Chrysler…you’re too late Bob.
Which new fuel efficient vehicles are going to be introduced for the 2009 model year that will turn things around?
There will be the new full-sized Dodge Ram and not so fuel miserly Dodge Challenger.
…but don’t worry about me; I’ll be floating gently to the ground in my multi-million dollar parachute while you guys use your extended vacations (without pay) to stand in bread lines.
He’s laying the groundwork for the announcement that they have reached an agreement with Chery (or similar) to design and build small cars for the N.A. market, followed by further U.S. plant closures.
“Aggressively conservative”?? Does that mean “doing less, faster”?
–chuck
Nothing to see here…. move along.
How much does it cost Cerebrus to fly this POS from Atlanta to Detroit every week?
I miss Dr. Z.
Their new pride and joy Journey gets worse MPG than the larger GM lamda SUVs.
We also remain committed to our bread-and-butter Dodge Ram pickup, and Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans.
Your former bread-and-butter is dying, and you’re sticking with it.
*two thumbs up*
And people wonder why you’re in trouble.
I miss Dr. Z.
Dr Z and his predecessor are largely the reason Chrysler is a trainwreck today. Everything that sucks about Chrysler’s product and cash reserves is the result of Mercedes’ mismanagement.
Seriously.
Drive a PT Cruiser (pre-Daimler) and Caliber (designed at the height of the DCX era) and it should be pretty obvious that the pre-Schrempp/Zetsche era car is by the far the better product, despite being on a chassis nearly a decade older. The same applies to just about any product pairing you care to make.
Wouldn’t you just love to see a list of the “goals and financial plans” which Chrysler has achieved.
This guy should be working for Bush…