Category: Brands

If the plan moves forward, construction could start in the second or third quarter of this year, with a build duration of roughly two years.

“We wish to start quickly. It’s all dependent on the state and local governments,” he said. “But we do not have a final obligation from either side yet.”

Thelen, who worked at Bosch for more than 20 years before joining Gotion, would serve as the plant manager. He recently moved from Oakland County to Mecosta County.

The plant would ultimately be overseen by parent company Gotion High-Tech Co. Ltd, whose C-suite and board members are based mostly in China.

Thelen said he is in charge of hiring managing directors at the plant, which he hopes to complete by the end of the year. He said the goal is to have primarily American workers, with an emphasis on local recruiting, but some key positions will require multilingual speakers to coordinate with sites in China, Germany and India.

He said it is not known whether workers at the factory would be represented by a union.

Most of the product from the factory will be supplied to Gotion plants that make final batteries, and the rest would be supplied externally, Thelen said. The company’s battery plants are in China, but it recently built its first foreign plant in Germany.

Thelen did not detail the company’s overall U.S. investment plans or say if Michigan could be in play for future investments.

“We are looking to be an international player, bringing the expertise that’s already been defined in the China market to the rest of the markets,” he said. “A lot of wonderful work has gone into many patents, not just for product but also process. We plan to bring that expertise and high-quality workmanship to the United States.”

Ford halted assembly of its in-demand F-150 Lightning in early February over a battery issue. Now, the Dearborn-based automaker says the EV pickup will resume production at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center on March 13. However, built Lightnings currently being held will remain in Ford’s care for the foreseeable future, awaiting updates.

The planned March 13 relaunch allows time for battery supplier SK On to build new battery packs and have them delivered to the plant. In an email regarding Lightning production, a Ford spokesperson stated the company will “apply our learnings and work with SK On’s team to ensure we continue delivering high-quality battery packs – down to the battery cells.” It’s unclear at this time if production will ramp up slowly or go full tilt on the 13th.

Regardless of production, built Lightnings awaiting shipping will remain in limbo for an unspecified amount of time, pending updates to “parts and engineering processes.” A Ford spokesperson had nothing further to add regarding details for these parts or processes. An update on the timeframe for releasing the trucks will come later.

This all started from an incident on February 4. An F-150 Lightning awaiting a pre-delivery inspection in a holding lot caught fire while charging. The extent of damage caused is unknown, but the fire prompted Ford to immediately halt Lightning production and issue a stop-shipment on trucks awaiting delivery. Thus far, no recalls or stop-sale notices have been announced regarding trucks already at dealerships or with owners. Additionally, a specific cause for the problem hasn’t been disclosed.

The production pause comes amid a very strong start to 2023 for Ford in terms of sales. The automaker reports a year-to-date increase of 11.8 percent overall as of March 1. EV sales are up considerably, with Ford reporting a 68.1-percent year-over-year increase for the month of February. A breakdown of that percentage shows Mustang Mach-E led the way with 1,783 sales for the month, followed by Lightning with 1,336 sales. The E-Transit accounted for 404 sales.

Earlier this week, Stellantis placed its factory in Belvidere, Illinois, on “idle” in what industry analysts believe is a clear sign the plant will likely be shut down soon. However, the United Auto Workers union was quick to release a statement saying such a decision “will not stand.”

The Belvidere production site currently has around 1,350 employees and has been assembling the Jeep Cherokee for years. It seems that the automaker’s major transition from combustion engines towards electrified and electric vehicles could force it to close the plant, though. With no new vehicle to be produced there – the last Cherokee rolled off the assembly lines on Tuesday this week – Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said the company is “looking for solutions” but there might not be any.

According to Tavares, electric vehicles are approximately 40 percent more expensive to produce than equivalent combustion-powered models and the company doesn’t want to pass that increase to customers for obvious reasons. Stellantis also can’t sell EVs at a loss and it is currently looking for ways to optimize the processes and absorb the added costs.

The UAW has a completely different approach to the situation, though. It says the “award-winning plant” has been producing vehicles for Chrysler, FCA, and Stellantis since 1965, delivering “quality and productivity for the corporation for generations.” More importantly, in an official statement, the organization says “Stellantis’ ill-advised decision will have negative repercussions throughout the region and supplier network” and “will disrupt lives, uproot families, and leave communities struggling to find economic drivers.”

The UAW seems to be especially unhappy by the fact that Stellantis refuses to invest in the plant in times when Carlos Tavares receives a $24.8 million compensation package for 2022. The UAW says it “will continue to demand that Stellantis put a product in the Belvidere Assembly Plant.” The Associated Press, in turn, predicts “national contract talks” could bring “a painful strike” this summer.

The Highland version of the Model 3 is expected to go into production in Shanghai in September, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

With Highland, Tesla is aiming to cut production costs and boost the appeal of an electric sedan that first went on sale in 2017, people involved in the project have said. There will also be changes to the exterior and powertrain performance with a focus on production efficiency, they said.

Tesla has separately asked suppliers for quotes for a revamped version of the Project Juniper version of the Model Y for exterior and interior components that would go into production next year, two of the people said.

The projected start of production is October 2024, according to one of the people.

It was not immediately clear how sweeping the revamp would be or what specific changes or improvements Tesla was looking to deliver with the new Model Y.

At the investor day event scheduled to be held at its Texas plant in Texas on Wednesday, Tesla has said it will share details about its next-generation vehicle platforms, which Musk has said would produce a vehicle about half the cost of Tesla’s current underpinings.

Tesla also said it will discuss long-term expansion plans, capital allocation and other subjects.

The EV maker has faced increasing competitive pressure in China, its second largest market behind the U.S., even after it cut prices.

Analysts have said that is in part because it has been seen as lagging competitors in introducing new models, improved navigation or luxe interior touches that car shoppers in the world’s largest EV market are seeking.

A revamp of the Model Y, first delivered to customers in 2020, would mean production and supply changes for a car now in production in all of Tesla’s major hubs: the U.S., China and Germany.

In contrast to legacy automakers, which have tended to make incremental model-year changes to cars before introducing an all-new version, Tesla has pressed the pace of change in its EVs.

Tesla has made frequent changes to its electric vehicles through software updates and sometimes through hardware changes to add features, improve performance or reduce production costs, analysts have said.

In one example, Tesla announced on Wednesday it had made changes in the suspension system on the Model Y made in China since January to make the ride smoother, an update Tesla fans applauded on social media.

Tesla’s plant near Berlin hit a production record equivalent to annual output of more than 200,000 Model Ys earlier this week, the company said. That was three weeks ahead of an internal production target reviewed by Reuters.

BERLIN — Volkswagen faced a barrage of criticism from campaigners after the head of its Chinese business said he saw no sign of forced labor during a visit to the automaker’s Xinjiang plant.

Activists and an international group of lawmakers said verifying labor standards in the region was impossible.

Rights groups have documented human rights abuses in Xinjiang since the 2000s, including mass forced labor in detention camps which the U.N. said could constitute crimes against humanity.

China has denied any abuses in Xinjiang.

VW‘s China chief Ralf Brandstätter spent 1-1/2 days between Feb. 16 and Feb. 17 touring the German group’s facility in the region, which is part of a joint venture with China’s SAIC, along with VW’s compliance and external relations chiefs in China.

Brandstätter said he saw no signs of forced labor and that workers’ comments matched the reports VW had received from SAIC about the plant.

“I can talk to people and draw my conclusions. I can try and verify the facts, and that is what I did. I did not find any contradictions,” he said, adding it was his first visit but not his last.

But Luke de Pulford of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of legislators from thirty democratic countries including Britain, Germany, and the U.S., said human rights organizations felt labor standards could not be verified in the region because members of the Uyghur minority could not speak freely without fearing for their safety.

Campaigners at the World Uyghur Congress in Germany and researchers from Sheffield Hallam University, who authored a report on the auto industry supply chain’s links to Xinjiang, said the visit to the region and conversations with workers were likely planned and coordinated with authorities.

Brandstätter said he spoke at length to seven workers individually – including Han Chinese, Uyghurs and Kazakhs – some through a translator of VW’s choice and some in English, and held shorter discussions with other workers on his tour, which he said occurred without government supervision.

In a statement, a VW works council spokesperson said the automaker must make clear what value the plant has for the business and take an active stand against human rights violations in China.

The plant, which previously assembled the Santana, has seen 65 percent staff cuts since the pandemic and only conducts final quality checks and installation of certain features before handing over vehicles to dealers for sale in the region.

Planned output for this year is 10,000, a fraction of the 50,000 targeted when it first opened.

For the uninitiated, Singer is just a tuning company focused on modifying vintage Porsches. But if you’ve ever seen a Singer in the metal, you probably know the attention to detail is pure perfection. And in order to achieve this unbeatable quality, the company operates a factory that doesn’t look like a tuning shop at all – it is more like an actual production facility and there’s a new video from TopGear showing us what’s going on behind the doors.

Rob Dickinson started Singer some 12 years ago when he presented a tuned Porsche 964 to the world. Ever since then, demand has been rapidly growing to the point where the company decided to stop taking new orders for its Classic model. Or, to put it simply, if you somehow manage to put an order today, it won’t be completed until the end of 2027. 

In the world of mass-produced mainstream vehicles, a four-year waiting list is unacceptable. But everyone who wants a classic sports car that has been thoroughly restored, modified to feature modern technologies, and hand assembled to the industry’s highest quality standards will probably have to be patient and wait. The good news, however, is that Singer now builds its cars in a new and larger facility in Torrance, California. 

This is the place where the firm now holds all its operations under one roof – from the spare and new parts inventory to the paint shop, to the general assembly, and finishing touches. Singer’s CEO Mazen Fawaz claims that as long as a car hasn’t been involved in a heavy accident, the company can handle everything else and turn it into a million-dollar gem. Seeing how meticulously arranged and operated this new facility is, we have zero doubts this statement is indeed true.

What’s in Singer’s future? As mentioned, the Classic model is now out of order because the company wants to preserve its value in the future. Instead, you can buy the Turbo model but bear in mind there are around 200 people on the waiting list already.

BMW is weighing to start serial production of hydrogen models in the second half of this decade, but any sales push makes sense only once adequate infrastructure becomes available, said Frank Weber, the automaker’s technology chief.

Just 750 hydrogen refueling stations were in operation globally last year, according to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researcher.

Getting the hydrogen-powered iX5 in front of the public is one way of highlighting the technology’s strong points, BMW said.

Filling up the iX5 with hydrogen takes only four minutes, compared with about 30 minutes for charging the most advanced battery powered vehicles.

BMW expects the adoption of hydrogen long-haul trucks to speed up installations of refueling stations, in a boon also to passenger cars. The company hopes that the cost of fuel cell components comes down once hydrogen rigs are produced at scale.

“We are confident that at the end of the decade, prices for an electric vehicle with a larger battery and fuel cell cars will be on par,” Weber said.

Still, BMW’s small test fleet suggests the German company is not expecting larger-scale adoption anytime soon. It’s also keeping the vehicles on a tight leash: aside from company-organized test drives, the cars will not be handed out to drivers for everyday use.

“Fuel cell cars are always going to be more expensive than battery powered ones,” said BNEF analyst Martin Tengler.

“Maybe BMW is targeting a niche segment, there might some money to be made. But the big picture is that it’s best to leave hydrogen cars where they have always been — just around the corner.”

European auto plants took a fresh hit from the global semiconductor shortage and will cut nearly 91,000 vehicles out their production schedules for this week as a result.

The worldwide impact of the chip shortage continues to inconvenience the auto industry, according to the newest forecast from AutoForecast Solutions, which has tracked the crisis since it materialized in early 2021. 

Recent weeks of regional flare-ups of the problem have taken a toll on the global total so far this year. One week ago, AFS tallied another 147,000 chip-related factory cutbacks, much of them in North America. 

But with chip supplies and workarounds improving, AFS’ year-end global forecast for lost production has not materially changed. It still estimates that worldwide production cuts due to missing microchips will reach 2.8 million cars and trucks by the end of 2023, more than 900,000 of them occurring at North American factories.

Audi is considering building a factory in the United States to take advantage of tax incentives offered under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Automotive News Europe reports. The IRA, which was passed in August 2022, offers subsidies and tax incentives for domestically produced green industry products, including a $7,500 consumer tax credit to buyers of North American-made electric vehicles.

However, Audi is currently not eligible for these incentives since it does not have a plant in the US. Markus Duesmann, CEO of Audi, told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in an interview that the IRA has made “building a US plant for electric cars very attractive.”

Duesmann plans to produce electric cars in all of Audi’s locations globally by 2029, with no new combustion-engine models to be introduced beyond 2026.

Audi is considering building the plant either by itself or with other Volkswagen Group brands. It was previously reported that VW plans to build its own plant in the US for the Scout brand, which will sell electric pickups and SUVs.

An Audi spokesperson said the companies were still evaluating options and various scenarios were possible. Carmakers have been localizing production and supply chains to reduce transport and logistics costs, and a growing number of companies are announcing heightened investment in the US over Europe in light of the IRA, which is worrying European officials.

The VW Group has already invested in North America to build up its regional electric vehicle production capacity, including the construction of a battery plant and overhauls of its assembly plant in Puebla and an engine plant in Silao, Mexico.

Plans call for introducing more than 25 new EVs through 2030 across VW’s brands that sell in the US: VW, Audi, Porsche, Bentley, and Lamborghini. It wants to localize “all major design and engineering responsibilities” for top-hat development of EVs for North American consumers by 2030. The Volkswagen brand’s plant in Chattanooga began producing the ID.4 electric crossover last year and is targeting 90,000 EVs in 2023.

Chinese battery parts manufacturer Gotion Inc. is reassessing plans for a $2.4 billion factory in Michigan’s Big Rapids area after scrutiny from a township board.

The company, which originally planned to build a portion of the plant on 115 acres in Big Rapids Township, is now focusing solely on the core 500 acres in Green Township, said township Supervisor Jim Chapman.

Chapman said he learned of the company’s decision to pause plans in the neighboring township during a phone call with Gotion executive Chuck Thelen this week.

“My take on it all is they are not shutting the door on Big Rapids Township, merely putting that on hold and moving forward on Green Township to get the project going,” Chapman said.

Thelen could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Gotion announced last year it would build a battery parts plant in Big Rapids and create up to 2,350 jobs across four new manufacturing plants spanning a combined 2 million square feet. It was approved for $715 million in state incentives.

Since then, the project has been subject to some opposition, primarily for its ties to China and environmental concerns.

The company notified the Big Rapids Township board of trustees this week that it would not focus on the township property, the Big Rapids Pioneer reported Friday.

Last week, the Big Rapids Township board voted to have the township’s attorney request a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

“They keep saying it’s China; it’s the Chinese …” Big Rapids Township Supervisor Bill Stanek told Crain’s Detroit Business last week in reference to those opposing the plant. “They’re just worried about the future, basically is what it is. We don’t know what the future is gonna be, and they’re determined to make sure that we don’t have anything coming to our town.”

Last week, Stanek said board opposition could cause the company to take the entire project to Green Township. Such a move would cause  Big Rapids Township to lose more than $1 million from the sale of the land and a water tower.

Stanek could not be reached for comment Friday.

The Big Rapids Township board appears to be the sole pocket of resistance to the project, which has support from the city of Big Rapids, Green Township and Mecosta County, Chapman said. The township voted unanimously a month ago in favor of a resolution to support the plant.

“Eighteen Mile Road is an arbitrary line,” Chapman said of the road that bisects the counties and original project footprint. “The goal is to bring this project to the community. It’s important to the community, the county and the region. The fact that its north of, south of, or both sides of one blacktop road is not relevant.”