May 22, 2012 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
Weekly build options: 27 E-26 vans; 1119 cutaways (34%); 626 slider doors; 725 r/h door deletes; 232 15-pass vans; 21% 07 loop; 199 diesels; 330 Onstar; 68 brake deck spare tire; 31 YF7s; .4% tan interior trim; 205 exports; 348 Enterprise rent-a-car; 108 U-Haul; 73% white vans.
There have been questions about which Fridays are scheduled in the near future. Production is scheduled for this Friday, May 25. There is no production scheduled for Friday, June 1 (holiday weeks are 40 hours per the local agreement so next week will be Monday off for Memorial day, 10.7, 10.7 and 10.6 for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday). The next 2 Fridays (June 8 & 15) are scheduled with the 22nd off. June 29 is scheduled and July 6 is off. As always, this is subject to change.
From the Veteran’s Committee: We will be having a shotgun meat shoot Saturday, June 2 at the Wentzville VFW 5327, 1414 Highway Z. Start time is 1 pm and there will be 14 rounds – 12 at $3, 1 at $4 and 1 at $6. Half are money rounds and half are meat rounds. Proceeds will go to the Veteran’s Memorial. For more information call 636-639-1648 or Steve Melson at 636-262-1234. Also, we are having a T-shirt design contest for this year’s SOS ride. The winner will get $100. The design must include all branches of the armed forces with no more than 6 colors used. All artwork must be original hand drawn work. The design is for the back only. Artwork may be dropped off at the Union Hall no later than 5 pm Monday, June 4.
From the Detroit Free Press: The future of Opel's factory in Bochum, Germany, remains uncertain after CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke gave no guarantees that the plant will escape closure under a restructuring plan due June 28 for General Motors Co.'s European division. Stracke told Bochum's workers today that he planned to stick with a labor agreement valid through 2014 and had not made any decision yet on what will happen after that. "There is no decision for Bochum beyond 2014," Stracke said in a 20-minute speech at a closed-door meeting with staff, as workers booed him. Stracke said he will present the restructuring plan June 28 to Opel's supervisory board. There is concern that Bochum is at risk after Opel's decision last week to pull production of its Astra compact car from Germany. Opel said it will build the next generation Astra only at its plants in Ellesmere Port, England, and Gliwice in Poland, from 2015, halting Astra production at Opel's main plant in Ruesselsheim, Germany.
From USA Today: Makers of alternative-fuel cars and the government love to create colorful images for how much gasoline the vehicles save and General Motors has come up with one: It says Chevy Volt owners collectively have saved a supertanker's worth of gas since the extended-range plug-in went on sale. That would be about 2.1 million gallons of gas, based on Volt owners driving more than 40 million miles on electricity alone (GM should know, since it monitors the operation of all Volts through its OnStar connection). The Volt can go about 35 miles on the plug-in charge before the gas engine kicks in. Based on the OnStar monitoring, Chevy says Volts are being driven about 60% of their miles electric-only, so they've also gone about 27 million miles using gasoline. "With each click of the odometer, Chevrolet Volt owners are measuring their contribution to reducing America's dependence on foreign oil and to preserving the environment," Cristi Landy, Volt marketing director, said in a statement, adding that they saved about $8 million at the pump, minus the cost of the electricity.
From Wards Auto: The 13.9 billion gallons of ethanol added to the U.S. fuel supply last year reduced the price of gasoline by $1.09 a gallon, researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Iowa State University say. The Center of Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State says regular gasoline averaged $3.52 a gallon in 2011 and without the ethanol, the price would have been about $4.61. A new report from the center says the average American household used 1,124 gallons of gasoline in 2011, meaning ethanol cut the gasoline expense by more than $1,225.
From Automotive News: Toyota is taking a beating from the yen's unfavorable exchange rate vs. the dollar, but that won't stop the company from ramping up exports from Japan this year. Vehicle shipments to North America from Japan are forecast to surge 25 percent to 730,000 units in the fiscal year that began April 1, Toyota says in its latest earnings outlook. Raising exports from Japan is not a Japanese automaker's best option these days because of the yen's corrosive exchange rate. A dollar taken in sales in the United States now brings about ¥80 for the automaker vs. ¥90 or more two years ago. In the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2012, currency losses lopped ¥250 billion, or $3.04 billion, from Toyota's operating profit. But Japan's biggest automaker has no other option as it chases a 26 percent increase in North American sales to 2.35 million units. With its assembly plants in the United States and Canada running near capacity, it needs imports from Japan -- especially of the hot-selling family of Prius hybrids, all of which are made in Japan -- to hit its target. Toyota, which exports a much larger percentage of its Japan-made cars than rivals Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co., wants to make more cars overseas, but the shift is happening slowly. Toyota aims to make 3.4 million vehicles in Japan this fiscal year, even though it expects domestic sales of only 1.55 million.
Tom Brune
UAW/GM Communications Coordinator
Wentzville Assembly
636-327-2119
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