April 11, 2011 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
From the Detroit News: General Motors Co. is recalling 150 permanent workers to its Lansing Delta Township assembly plant to replace laid-off temporary workers, company officials said. About 96 temporary workers lost their jobs as a result of the switch, GM said. Company spokeswoman Sherrie Childers-Arb said the move helps provide jobs for GM's hourly workers laid off from factories that were shuttered. The new openings in Lansing will draw from a pool of about 1,200 hourly workers now on layoff at GM. Several weeks ago, United Auto Workers Vice President Joe Ashton said he expects GM to recall all its laid-off factory workers by September. GM, in January, announced it was adding a third shift and about 750 workers to its Flint assembly plant where it makes heavy-duty pickup trucks. The automaker also expects to add a shift and 600 workers at Lansing Grand River when it starts building a previously announced Cadillac small car.
From Reuters: Nissan Motor Co. has received complaints from owners that its Leaf electric car on occasion fails to start, posing a potential setback for the automaker's goal of promoting zero-emission vehicles. Nissan said on Monday it was looking into the exact cause, which it traced back to the Leaf's air-conditioning unit. Nissan is investigating whether the glitch was in a certain component or the programming, spokesman Toshitake Inoshita said. Nissan plans no recall for now since the issue does not affect safety, but will decide how to proceed after identifying the source of the problem, he said.
From the HattiesburgAmerican: Nissan Motor Co. officials say it's too early to dismiss the initial sales figures as signifying a slow start for its new commercial van. The NV, Nissan's first domestically built light commercial vehicle, has sold 31 units so far this year, 19 of them coming in March, when dealers began receiving shipments of the vehicles, according to the automaker. Production began in January at the automaker's Canton plant. Bill Visnic, an analyst with automotive site Edmunds.com, said the initial sales aren't encouraging.
From the Detroit News: Ford Motor Co. and federal regulators remain in talks over whether the automaker should expand a recall of F-150 pickups over dozens of reports that air bags have deployed without warning. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland said Wednesday that talks are continuing after more than a month — and the agency has been pushing for more vehicles to be called back . In February, the Dearborn automaker said it would recall 135,000 F-150 trucks in the United States over concerns raised by the government that air bags could deploy without warning. That number, however, represents just a fraction of the 1.3 million vehicles that NHTSA asked Ford to recall in a Jan. 26 letter. NHTSA said it has reports of 269 air bag deployments and 98 injuries in 2004-2006 F-150s. Injuries include chipped teeth, fractured arms and burns.
Earthquake update: There are numerous reports of schedule changes and plant closures as well as the temporary startup of some plants in Japan. GM is canceling Friday production this week at Arlington. According to a report from Barclays analyst Brian Johnson, new GM CFO Dan Ammann said General Motors has re-sourced many parts affected by the crisis in Japan but isn't yet out of the woods. Many GM team members are on site at Japanese supplier plants "to assist with restarting/resourcing component production and to ensure that GM is treated fairly vis-à-vis Japanese automakers for share of component inventory," Johnson wrote. GM has completed a "thorough review" of its Tier 1 suppliers and is assessing the situation at smaller suppliers, Johnson wrote. The supply of semiconductors is a key concern, but GM turned up "no major issues" among its Tier 1 suppliers. In Japan, Toyota will resume output at all factories on April 18, rather than on April 14 as it once planned, and at half of capacity. Production will halt after April 27 for the annual Golden Week string of national holidays. Normally output would resume on May 9, but Toyota hasn't decided on a production plan after the holidays. In North America, Toyota will halt vehicle production on Friday and April 18, 22 and 25, with most of its powertrain and component factories following suit. Its Georgetown, Ky., plant will build cars on April 21, but other assembly plants will be closed that day. Toyota already had eliminated overtime and some Saturday production "in order to conserve parts coming from Japan," Bob Young, Toyota's North American purchasing boss, told Automotive News. Honda has extended North American vehicle assembly cuts by an extra week, through April 22. Shortages of Japanese parts are expected to bring more production cuts after that. Honda went on half-time production schedules at most North American plants on March 29. Honda's plants in Japan have been shuttered since the quake. Nissan said that two assembly plants would be closed in Mexico for a total of 3 weeks while they intend to restart four Japanese assembly parts at reduced volume using parts produced after the quake. Automotive News reports that the world's largest maker of automotive microcontrollers, Renesas Electronics Corp., is shifting production from a key crippled plant to two other plants, but it will take months before shipments can start. Renesas will move production from its Naka plant, which built 25 percent of its chips, to one plant in Singapore and one in western Japan. The transfer could take up to two months. The Naka plant won't resume partial operation until July. And the manufacturing process for microchips can take up to two months, meaning it could be four months before those new sites are shipping finished products. A modern vehicle uses 30 to more than 100 microchips, essential in such things as parking brakes, engine control units, entertainment systems, stability control and power steering. They are highly complex and often use-specific, which means they can't easily be re-sourced. "The situation is quite difficult," says Matteo Fini, a senior analyst for the consulting firm Supplier Business, a division of IHS Automotive. "I see too many problems trying to replace these devices."
No comments:
Post a Comment