Daily Grit by Wes Thorp

Can anybody explain why the popular Ford Fusion is being manufactured in Mexico?

Buy a Honda or a Toyota in this part of the country and it's easy to be a target for some pretty harsh criticism for not buying American.  And this happpens even if your car is made just down the road in Indiana.

Now take Ford and it's new Fusion model which is so popular that dealers have a hard time keeping them in stock.  The Detroit News writes about the car in today's edition where about halfway down in the story it reveals that most of the Fusions are made in Mexico.

Why wouldn't Ford make them all here?  The company has to have the manufacturing capacity.  The UAW and other unions seem to be completely silent on this.  Why?  I don't get it.  Can anybody help me understand?

This is from today's Detroit News:

Ford manufactures the Fusion at its three-shift assembly plant in Hermosillo, Mexico, and this year will add a shift of production at the Flat Rock Assembly Plant.

“Clearly, it's a matter of getting more stock out to those regions of the country and that's what we plan to do in the fall when we get Flat Rock on line,” he said.

The Hermosillo plant can produce about 300,000 Fusions annually; the new Flat Rock shift will be able to make another 100,000, or more than 8,000 per month.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130614/AUTO0102/306140029#ixzz2WBrhh0bH

 

Related articles

Ford Adding 200000 to Capacity as Fusion, F-Series Gain - Bloomberg

Getting ready for the Food Network's Chopped, air in my Honda Civic Tires and tendonitis of the shoulder

 

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While cleaning off my computer desktop, I ran into these pictures one of which made me smile, two made me quizzical and one made me sore.

One is of my grandson in Bosnia  who tries his hand at playing with rice, mixing it, transferring it from bowl to bowl and just having fun.  His dad likes to cook and he's good at it.  Might my grandson be a Food Netowrk star in the making?

The second two are from my checking the air pressure of the tires today on my Honda Civic.  The door panel says both front and back should have 32 psi.  All four had 26 when I checked.  What's that all about?  At a gas station just down the road, it cost a buck to fill all four tires.  How often do you check your tires?

The last one was of the sign of the Physical Therapy office I went to yesterday where the therapist is trying to ease the pain in one shoulder because of tendonitis.  For the past couple weeks the Extra Strength Tylenol bottle has joined my inner circle of friends.

Why is the Chevy Volt failing with the car buying public?

I've been watching and learning about the Chevy Volt and waiting for someone I know here in mid-Michigan to get one so I could see it up close.  I will be waiting a while to see one on our local roads.

The AutoBlogGreen reports that General Motors sold only 281 of the cars in February for the whole country.  Not too impressive. What do these stats mean?  It has to be more than cost that's keeping consumers from buying them.

 

But would the new Chevy Volt pass the "Cousin Glenn" test?

I just saw this video of Robert Scoble taking a new Chevy Volt on a test drive where a GM employee sits next to him and explains what's new in driving an electric car.  I'm excited in a way that reminds me of new car time when I grew up in Bay City (MI). 

That time of the years in the sixties was an occasion and every young guy in town would sneak a peek in a dealers lot for covered vehicles waiting to be released.  I caught this excitement from my cousin Glenn  who was also my college roommate.  The Volt is bringing that back.  The video:

I do have Uncle Paul VanDenBerg's World War II Army Air Corps Medals

My Aunt Florence was right.  I do have my Uncle Paul VanDenBerg's medals from his service in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.

She called me a few years ago from her home in Florida asking me to find my uncle's medals from some pretty distinguished service performed during bombing missions over Europe during the war.  She maintained they were in some boxes she left with me before she made her annual trek down south.

I looked and looked, but couldn't find them and told her I didn't have them.  She insisted that I did.  She was elderly and she spoke her mind freely.  I felt bad.

Well, my wife found them while going through a box that had a whole different label for things that had been from my elderly mother.

Aunt Florence is up in heaven and I'm sure the medals are a non-issue.  But, none-the-less, she was right.  If anybody see's her up there, let her know.

The story behind the medals is harrowing and is indicative of the ugliness of that war.  My uncle's plane was shot up pretty badly and had to be stabilized with his parachute flying out a gaping hole in the aircraft.  He and most of his crew made it back to Italy.

The material from that parachute was used to make a baptismal gown worn by me, my cousins and my kids.

Now I've found the medals.  Does anybody recognize what they are?

I think my uncle's unit was the 456th Bomb Group led by Col. Thomas W. Steed and based out of Italy.  I have an old calendar that my aunt had where Col. Steed gives the background and activities of the unit during 1945.

My Uncle Paul died several years before my aunt.

Why does Ford have a 3Q profit and GM doesn't?

Ford Motor Company has a $997 third quarter profit, according to this morning's Detroit Free Press.  They received no government aid and they didn't go bankrupt like GM and Chrysler.  What's the difference?  Why was Ford able to do it and not the others?  Management?  UAW contracts?  Karma?

The Library of Congress and an oral history of the auto industry in Michigan

I hope my kids watch this video in the Detroit News about the closing of the Pontiac General Assembly Plant where thousands and thousands of vehicles were assembled.  In the video, workers and their sons and daughters describe what went on there and how it affected their families. 

The video and the first person column describes a project being discussed by the Library of Congress to do an oral history of Michigan's auto workers and what they remember.

Everybody in Michigan has had somebody whose life and livelihood centered around an auto plant. 

It was part of the life here and it permeated just about every region of the state.

I'm anxious to listen to auto workers tell their stories.

It's part of our identity from being born and raised in Michigan.

Read this Detroit News story about downtown Detroit and weep

I remember when downtown Detroit was pulsing with life and was a center of business in the state of Michigan and also the center for auto manufacturing in the world. 

Look at it today as outlined in a Detroit News article and the list of 48 vacant buildings in the downtown.

Can this be reversed? 

What would it take?

Any examples in this country where a downtown area has turned around?

General Motors' Lordstown, Ohio plant reopens today

Manufacturing used to be king in Ohio's Lordstown and Youngstown corridor.  The Detroit New's this morning profiles the area's struggles that started with the closing of the steel plants in the 1970s and hangs on with a thread with today's reopening of GM's plant where its new Cruze model will be built.

What can Michigan learn from Ohio's experience or vice-versa? 

What will post-manufacturing life look like in our part of the country?

Ford sales bump: Good news for Michigan?

Are things looking brighter for Michigan with the news that Ford Motor Co. sold more vehicles last month than it did in July 2008?

The Detroit Free Press reports this morning that the Dearborn (MI) based auto company did something no other domestic car company has done since Jan. 2008 which a year-to-year sales increase. 

Economic news in Michigan has been glum for some time.  Is this changing or is it just reaction to the federal government borrowing billions of dollars to use as incentives for car buyers to buy a new vehicle?

What does Ford's quarterly profit of $2.3 billion mean for Michigan?

It's been a long time since I've seen the words Ford Motor Co. and profit go-together in a Detroit Free Press story and that's why I was surprised this morning.

The story says that Ford had a quarterly profit of $2.3 million in the quarter that ended June 30. Its balance sheet was positively affected by one time gains from debt restructuring.

So what does this mean? Is Ford better managed than General Motors and Chrysler? Is it because they didn't take a government bailout?

Is it time to get out the good coffee in the morning and celebrate a little?

GM's new board of director's--the U.S. Congress

So, this is how the new government-owned General Motors looks. The U.S. Congress is getting ready to pass a law requiring that GM and Chrysler to reopen the dealerships it closed last month.

The Detroit Free Press, in a story today, outlines how the U.S. House has enough sponsors for the bill to pass it when it comes up for a full vote. Three Michigan Republicans have signed on as cosponsors, U.S. Reps. Thad McCotter, Vern Ehlers and Pete Hoekstra.

Hold up your hand if you think the U.S. Congress can do a better job of managing the auto company than private enterprise.

Delphi's salaried retirees could get their pensions cut

Michigan autoworkers are bracing for another hit.

This time it's the salaried retirees from the Delphi Corp., the parts supplier to GM, that will take an almost direct hit by having their pensions taken over by the federal government.

This story from mlive.com outlines how as early as next month the federal bankruptcy court could move pension responsibilities for Delphi salaried workers to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp

The result is that some pensions could be cut dramatically.

Here's a running list of individual GM dealers closing from around the country

The Huffington Post has a running list of individual GM dealers from around the country who have been given the shutdown order by the company. The list is being updated as the information is received.

Here's list of GM dealership closings around the country

The rumors about GM dealerships closing in mid-Michigan have been swirling around coffeeshops for a couple of weeks. Here's a list released today in the Detroit Free Press of the number of dealerships closing in each state. Individual dealerships were not named.

How much salary will GM CEO Fritz Henderson get paid by taxpayers?

Fritz Henderson, the General Motors CEO, says he will probably stay on as the company's top guy once it emerges from bankruptcy, according to an AP story on MLive.com today.

With the taxpayers owning GM now, the question has to be raised about how much salary we will pay him.

Remember several months back when the U.S. Congress forced Detroit auto execs to drive to D.C. rather than take their private jets. The argument was that it cost less.

Will the GM CEO's pay receive the same kind of scrutiny or will he be paid millions like his predecessors?

As the source of the funds for their operation, the taxpayers should have a right to know what top GM execs will be paid. Don't you think?

Fact: General Motors has been nationalized by the federal government

Daniel Howes, business columnist for the Detroit News, has a worthy read this morning about the present operational status of General Motors.

He takes on the assertion by President Obama and his automotive industry restructuring team that the federal government is not in the auto business.

Howes writes that it's time to settle this fiction. General Motors has been nationalized by the federal government. We--the taxpayers--are in the car business.

He writes:

The White House, key members of Congress and the president's investment-banker agents on the auto task force are undeniably in the car business, calling shots on plants, products, restructuring, a new chairman and a carefully selected slate of would-be directors for a reconstituted board.

Has anybody seen a full list of GM dealers targeted for shutdown?

I may have missed it, but has anybody seen a full list of the 1,300 GM dealers slated for closing?

Today's the deadline day, according to the Detroit Free Press, for the targeted dealers to decide whether they will accept their fate with the auto company.

In contrast to Chrysler, I've never seen a list of GM dealers pegged for closing. There have been dealers quoted in random news stories who have said their dealership agreements were not being renewed, but I haven't seen a list.

Who in Michigan got a closure notice?

Are they going to contest it?

There's no more pretending about our free market economy

Don't read this Detroit Free Press story about how President Obama's team called the shots on the Chrysler bankruptcy on a full stomach. They made and executed all the plays. They were running the show.

Back in the old days those kinds of actions by government would only be taken in governments that felt it could make better decisions than its people.

The prevailing thought seems to be that government knows better.

What other areas are they going to extend that attitude to?

This change could go in a real scary direction.

Most West Michigan GM dealers get good news

The Grand Rapids Press reported yesterday that most GM dealers in West Michigan got good news about staying open during the car company's restructuring.

The exception was Crown Motors in Holland, a Buick and Cadilac dealer.