After years of rumors and speculations of the will they/won’t they variety, a brand-new Saab 9-3 has – finally! – managed to roll down the assembly line! Don’t be fooled by the fact that this new Saab looks just like the 2009 models the company was building when it was spun off from GM’s bankruptcy, however. This car features all-new components designed by Saab engineers and manufactured in Trollhättan, Sweden.
Another day, another flip-flop on future product plans over at Casa di Marchionne. The latest news comes from Italian unions, who claim that the Maserati Levante will be built at the Mirafiori plant in Italy, rather than at Jeep’s plant in Detroit.
Holden and HSV try their hand at the “Imported From Detroit” style car commercial. As someone who has always been partial to Aussie muscle sedans, it’s easy for me to say I’m a fan. No doubt the line about cars becoming “smaller, quieter and more vanilla” will resonate with many of us. In a country where the Mazda3 and Toyota Corolla have knocked the Commodore and Ford Falcon off the top perches of the sales leader boards, it carries extra significance.
Nissan’s move to localize production of their cars and trucks is moving full steam ahead. The next generation Rogue, built on the new modular CMF architecture, will be manufactured at Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee.
Ontario is home to a number of auto plants, both import and domestic, union and non-union, as well as numerous suppliers. None of them are so tightly intertwined as General Motors is with the town of Oshawa, about 40 miles from Toronto (though, as any area resident will tell you, it’s really 2 hours away, thanks to our horrendously inadequate infrastructure). For nearly a century, GM has been building cars in Oshawa in one form or another, as the plant has established a reputation as one of GM’s best, consistently building high quality cars, trucks and crossovers over the decades. But that tradition may be coming to a close by 2016.
The latest scuttlebutt has the Dodge Journey moving from Mexico to Michigan during its next redesign – and that could leave Chrysler’s plant in Toluca, Mexico without any product.
During the launch of the Ford Fiesta 1.0L Ecoboost, multiple outlets ran articles parroting Ford’s PR line about the lack of an automatic transmission. Apparently, Ford declined to offer an automatic or Powershift dual-clutch gearbox on the 3-cylinder Fiesta since a two-pedal option would run counter to the 1.0L’s stated mission of being both fun to drive and good on gas.
The Ford Fiesta looks to be picking up and moving from its current assembly locations in India and Mexico to a central location in Thailand when the next generation rolls around in 2016.
Subaru is set to expand capacity at its Indiana plant by 100,000 units, adding the Impreza alongside the Legacy, Outback and Tribeca to help fill demand for its vehicles in the United States. (Read More…)
In less than a decade, the number of auto company workers employed by companies other than the Big 3 has risen from 25 to 39 percent. But by 2017 that number could rise to 50 percent.
The 2014 Cherokee could be the first Jeep produced in China in nearly 6 years. Jeep CEO Mike Manley said that the Cherokee was an “obvious choice” for local production, as Jeep looks to expand its customer base in China.
Jeep is counting on the new Cherokee to help continue its streak of year-over-year sales growth, but the brand is facing production related challenges that could torpedo their quest for three consecutive years of sales growth.
Hot sales of Jeep’s venerable Wrangler have led to Chrysler adding 200 new jobs at their Toledo, Ohio factory.
The driving force behind the 12 man protest at Chrysler’s Warren, Michigan plant has gotten the boot.
The Detroit News, which broke the story, reported that protest organizer Alex Wassell was suspended without pay after nearly 20 years on the job. The protest was not sanctioned by the UAW, and led to the leaking of some documents outlining quality problems with the 2013 Ram 1500, a crucial product for Chrysler.
Since Wassell’s suspension, groups like the ACLU and Labor Notes, a union activist group, have spoken out about the firing, which Chrysler described as being due to “…engaging in activity constituting or appearing to constitute a conflict with the interest of the company.”
Meanwhile, the UAW has been curiously silent on the whole matter, which gives us an indirect example of the inherent conflict that occurs when the labor union and the corporate owners are one and the same.
The inevitable march to American-made “imports” continues, as one Toyota official recently declared his desire to see every single Toyota sold in America to be a made-in-USA product.
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