May 7, 2014 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

• There will be a Women’s Committee and a Veterans Committee meeting between shifts at the Union Hall on May 8, 2014. All are welcome to attend.

• Blood Drive signups will be this Wednesday and Thursday at 1st break and lunch time on both shifts in the cafeteria. The Blood Drive will be held next Thursday, May 15.

• Raffle tickets for the VAP (overnight drive) vehicles for the Memorial Day weekend – May 23 through May 27 – will be on sale through this Friday, May 9. Tickets are $5 apiece or 3 for $10 and available at Suggestions, Benefits, Personnel, Kandi Kinsler, and Wanda Richard will be selling them in the cafeteria at lunch time. All proceeds will go to Habitat for Humanity.

• Sales of our van dipped slightly last month but were still fairly strong at 9126. Here’s how the rest of the segment shook out:

2014

	2014	2013	Change	Share
Ford Econoline	13,239	12,573	+5.3%	48.4%
GM	9,126	9,379	-2.7%	33.4%
Mercedes Sprinter	2,394	1855	+29.1%	8.7%
Nissan NV	1,367	892	+53.3%	5.0%
Ram Promaster	1233	---	---	4.5%
Ford Transit Connect	3573	2,779	+28.6%
Nissan NV 200	938	---	---

While field supplies in units went up about 1300, as measured in days supply they went down from 55 to 49 because of the higher daily sales rate. Passenger vans dropped in both units and days supply, with the Express down to 8 days, easily the lowest of any GM product. GMC cargo vans accounted for most of the increase in units, going up 1050. Looking at the midsize pickup market, Toyota sold 13,871 Tacomas, which was up 6.9% over last April. Nissan sold 5,697 Frontiers, up 10.5%.

• Pricing, among most every other specification, for the new Ford Transit full size van is now available. A regular (130”) wheelbase, low roof cargo van with a V6 will run $29,565. For comparison sake, a 1500 Express work van with the V6 starts at $27,710. The Transit has 246 cubic feet of cargo space vs. the Express at 240 cubic feet. Of course the Transit can be configured to provide up to 487 cubic feet of space with the highest roof and longest wheelbase, aptly termed the “jumbo”. Fuel economy numbers are still not available.

• Cont’d: According to the Kansas City Star, the Claycomo plant outside of Kansas City is producing the vans on one shift with daily production expected to reach 300. A second shift is expected later in the year, assuming demand warrants it. The Transit officially goes on sale this summer although a visit to the Ford website allows you to configure your van now. The Econoline will be available in all versions through the end of the year and then will be reduced to only cutaway and chassis only versions. Surprisingly, there is already $500 cash back on all versions of the Transit van.

• Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) CEO Sergio Marchionne revealed yet another 5-year business plan yesterday that boldly calls for increasing global sales from 4.4 million to 7 million, including an additional 1 million sales in North America, by 2018. But it won’t be by adding a midsize pickup: “We’ve gone through this issue now for five years, and we can’t flip the frame right.” He also had this to say about UAW wages: “I’ve always been of the view that the two-tier wage structures are unsustainable in the long term. We need to freeze the tier ones and make them a dying class. I don’t mean that literally. I object violently to the notion of entitlement in the wage structure. That’s something that is incredibly unwise.”

• From Automotive News: General Motors' first redesigned full-sized pickups in seven years have come dangerously close to being labeled flops since their launch last summer. The trucks haven't provided the typical market-share pop in the bread-and-butter pickup segment. Dealers have griped that the pricing is all wrong -- too steep to fend off aggressive deals from Ford and Ram. Critics derided the conservative styling and lack of innovations such as an aluminum frame or diesel engine. But the gobs of profits that GM piled up from higher transaction prices on the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra saved GM's recall-plagued first quarter -- and have forced a reassessment of GM's strategy for its new generation of pickups.
"GM may have made the right call to go for price over share," Barclays Capital analyst Brian Johnson said in an April 24 research note. Two months earlier, Johnson had declared GM's rollout "arguably the least successful large pickup launch over the last 15 years." The $5,400 spike in transaction prices that GM commanded for the Silverado and Sierra in the first quarter from a year earlier indicates that GM's pickup launch, while far from flawless, is unfolding along the lines that GM had sketched out years ago. GM knew years ago that Ford was likely to do an aluminum pickup for the next-generation F-150, scheduled for launch late this year, the sources said. But GM execs didn't believe the cost and risk of such a move was warranted, mainly for two reasons: First, GM's trucks already had a 200- to 300-pound weight advantage on the F-150. Second, tougher federal fuel economy regulations for trucks don't ramp up in earnest until 2019.
The decision allowed GM to hold down the cost of the new truck platform while still commanding higher prices, until it likely develops a more expensive aluminum underpinning for the next generation, which should arrive around 2019, sources say. Until then, GM expects to maintain pricing by adding innovation. An eight- or 10-speed transmission is expected within two years; a light-duty diesel engine is a strong possibility, too. So far, GM execs have stayed relatively stingy on incentives, even if it means allowing Ram to edge Silverado sales for a month, as it did in March. The pricing strategy is working in the showroom, says Henry Brown, owner of Henry Brown Buick-GMC in Gilbert, Ariz. Brown says he was "one of the loudest critics" of GM sticking to high prices at the expense of market share. But Brown says his sales staff consistently is able to walk Sierra shoppers up to features such as a touch-screen infotainment system. "You can't sell a cheap one," Brown says. "Maybe [GM] knew the market better than we did." GM's sales of pricey trucks have spiked. In the first quarter, the Silverado and Sierra accounted for 37.7 percent of all pickups sold for north of $40,000, up from 26.7 percent a year earlier, data from J.D. Power and Associates show. Production constraints pose a threat to GM's momentum on high-priced trucks, though. GM struggled for several months to meet demand for V-8 engines. Constraints continue to crimp dealers' ordering mix, including a pinch in the supply of larger wheels, four-wheel-drive models and the 6.2-liter V-8 engine.