May 9, 2011 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
Reminder from the CAP Committee: Run-off Election for Chairman - Vote Tuesday, May 10. Voting Hours 4:30 am – 8 pm. Second shift needs to vote before their shift or at lunch.... before 8 PM.
From the Tennesseean: The General Motors auto plant in Spring Hill has a good friend in GM North America President Mark Reuss, a Vanderbilt University engineering graduate who says Middle Tennessee will always occupy a warm place in his heart. But he’s a realist, too, and no matter how much he likes this area, Reuss won’t be restarting Spring Hill’s idled vehicle assembly line until there’s a solid business case to justify increasing capacity for making new cars, he said during a trip to Nashville last week. “We have a tremendous facility in Spring Hill, and I have always said it’s a jewel,” Reuss said in an interview with The Tennessean. But Reuss said the company needs to see a longer track record of sales growth. “We’re just not there yet,” he said. “The economy is the key. People are calling this the ‘jobless recovery,’ and there is a little bit to that. Now, the higher gas pricing makes (for) another element of instability, although it isn’t yet a crisis. The question is how fast is the recovery going to be, and how long can it be sustained?” GM has no plans to abandon the Spring Hill plant. The company still builds four-cylinder engines and key body panels for various vehicles there, and about 1,000 people continued to work there (516 are still laid off). But getting another entire vehicle to build there remains in the future, Reuss said. “As much as I love it down here, and love the plant and all that, I’m not going to do it too soon and be burned by it,” he said. “So, we’re going to do it at the right time. I would love to do it, and the union would love to do it, too. But we’ve got to be vigilant (about) our break-even and capacity plans.”
From Automotive News: Ford Motor Co. set to enter contract talks with the United Auto Workers, said its U.S. labor costs are now $8 an hour higher than the mostly nonunion U.S. factories of foreign automakers such as Hyundai Motor Co. Ford, on a website it posted last month, said it pays about $58 an hour in wages and benefits to its 40,600 U.S. hourly workers, $3 more than the automaker said last year. Ford's labor costs have risen, in part, because of the $5,000 profit sharing checks the automaker handed out to U.S. workers this year, said Marcey Evans, a company spokeswoman. "Profit sharing has been added to the amount and the $5,000 adds about $2 an hour to our labor costs," Evans said. "Without that, our labor costs are closer to $56 an hour."
From the Detroit News: Federal regulators have expanded an investigation into 2.7 million Ford F-150 pickups over complaints fuel tank straps have rusted and failed, putting vehicles at risk of a fire. In a notice posted on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website Sunday, the agency said it had upgraded its investigation into 2.7 million 1997-2001 F-150 pickups after reviewing about 300 complaints. NHTSA said there are two reports of fires. In one, leaking fuel ignited, but quickly burned out. In the other incident, Ford said "the leaking fuel ignited and the … fire destroyed the vehicle." No injuries have been reported. If the straps break, the tank might tilt, drop and hit the road, causing a fuel leak. The leaking gasoline can potentially cause a fire, NHTSA said.
Here are some excerpts from a Car and Driver review of the Nissan NV large van: “The surprises here are multiple: first, that Nissan chose to play in this game at all. The full-size-van market amounts to about 300,000 units in most years (although it dipped sharply in 2008 and ’09), and it’s dominated by Ford (about 50 percent) and General Motors (around 45 percent)…. Apparently, Nissan took that as a challenge. Another surprise is that Nissan chose to create a dedicated chassis for its new van…. Engine performance is pretty good for a vehicle in this size and weight class, and fuel economy is about what you’d expect. We logged 11 mpg during the van’s two-week stay—not impressive, but that did include almost 400 miles of towing to and from GingerMan Raceway in western Michigan….This van’s dynamics also are what you’d expect… but this isn’t the kind of rig you take to your weekend autocross. The steering is slow—4.0 turns lock-to-lock—and transient responses tend toward ponderous…The Nissan’s ride quality is surprisingly smooth for a big van with spring rates selected for heavy loads, and the NV is quiet at highway speeds, considering its cargo-space acoustics rival those of a railroad depot. The optional sound system is respectable for a vehicle of this type, and there’s an iPod jack, as well as a USB port. Nissan chose not to include a provision for wireless internet connectivity like the Ford Transit Connect does. On the other hand, the cavernous center console will swallow a laptop, files, and all sorts of other stuff that might be useful to a commercial-van driver. The as-tested total came to $33,270, more than $3000 cheaper than the most basic Sprinter’s price of entry…What we can say is that those who do opt for the NV will be very pleased with Nissan’s latest non sequitur.”
More Detroit News: The pace of new model introductions in the U.S. auto market is expected to pick up in the next three years, with General Motors Co. and FordMotor Co. taking a lead, according to a Bank of America-Merrill Lynch report. The Japanese automakers' product cycles, meanwhile, are converging to the industry average, suggesting their market share gains will slow down, the investment firm said in its annual "Car Wars" report. Between 2012 and 2015, GM and Ford will have the highest model replacement rates — 29 percent each, compared with 28 percent at Honda Motor Co. and 27 percent for Toyota Motor Corp. ChryslerGroup LLC lags with a 22 percent renewal rate. That compares with replacement rates of 12 percent to 14 percent for GM and Ford between 2001 and 2011, and 18 percent for Toyota and Honda, which have the freshest model lineups.
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