Wednesday, January 22, 2014

State of the Union January 22, 2014

January 22, 2014 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
We are pleased to announce that Missouri Governor Jay Nixon will be visiting Wentzville Assembly Center tomorrow. UAW Region 5 Director Gary Jones is also expected to attend. Gov. Nixon has been a strong advocate of the auto industry in Missouri and for us here in particular, in addition to being a longtime supporter of labor. The Governor is expected to arrive here at 11:45 am and after meeting with plant leadership, will make his way down the A-aisle and go to the audit room where he will have a few remarks for the workforce at 12:30 pm. Afterwards he will pose with our new pickups and employees for photos. Then Gov. Nixon will head to the St. Louis Auto Show along with Chairman Mike Bullock, Launch Manager Rick Murphy and GM Vehicle Engineer Anita Burke to speak to the media about our great new trucks. Let’s give the Governor a warm welcome and thank him for his continued support!

• Reminder: Union meeting is today at 2:45 pm.

• From Automotive News: Bob King admits he was overly optimistic early in his four-year term as UAW president when he predicted the union would be able to organize at least one of the foreign-owned auto plants in the southern United States quickly. But King said he believes the UAW will begin representing Volkswagen Group of America workers in Tennessee before union rules force him to retire in five months. The UAW is waiting for VW to respond to its request to recognize the union without a vote by the plant's workers. It has submitted cards signed by what King says are more than enough workers to prove that the employees want UAW representation. Anti-union activists are fighting the effort and have circulated petitions that they say should invalidate some of the cards. "I think and hope it will be soon," King said in an interview last week after his speech at the Automotive News World Congress. "We've got a very strong majority there. I'm confident once we agree on the process that the workers will choose to have UAW representation." Labor experts say the dispute over whether enough workers support union representation means VW is unlikely to let the UAW inside the plant without an election. VW executives have said they will respect workers' wishes. "I will accept -- support or accept -- what the workers in Chattanooga eventually, at one point of time, will decide to do," Michael Horn, the new CEO of Volkswagen AG's U.S. unit, told reporters at the Detroit auto show last week. "There's a big back and forth."

In the race to get the weight out of pickups, General Motors -- not Ford -- may actually be the biggest loser. Ford rolled out the long awaited 2015 aluminum-bodied F-150 this week, and claimed the curb weight will be 550 to 700 pounds less than the 2014 version forged with steel sheet metal. Hats off to Ford. That's huge. Because the F-150 is the nation's top-selling vehicle -- car or truck – a redesigned model is a major event. The introduction at the Detroit auto show sucked the oxygen out of the building; few auto writers paid more attention to anything else.
Lost in the F-150 hoopla is that GM is also in the lightweight game. GM stayed with steel in redesigning the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra for 2014. Instead of embracing aluminum, GM this fall will offer a slightly smaller truck, the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon. The new Colorado is actually also full-sized -- if you compare its length, width and other specs to the full-sized trucks GM built in the 1960s to early '90s. In fact, many of the dimensions overlap.
In the 1970s, GM trucks ranged in length from 186 inches to 216 inches. The 2015 Colorado ranges from 208 inches to 224.5 inches, depending on cab style and bed length. Those old trucks were 78 inches wide, while the 2015 Colorado is 74 inches and change. But here's an interesting Colorado tech spec: Every variant of the Colorado weighs about 900 pounds less than the 2014 Silverado. It also weighs within 100 pounds or so of the full-sized Chevy trucks of the '70s and '80s.
The Colorado will offer an array of engines -- including a new diesel. We don't yet know about fuel economy, but Chevy seems to have made it a priority. A four-cylinder with a six-speed manual transmission will be available. It's possible the Colorado could see close to the 30 mpg that Ford is aiming for with the 2015 F-150.
We do know Chevy's new truck can be put to work. Chevrolet spokesman Tom Wilkinson says the Colorado's maximum tow rating is 6,700 pounds -- about twice as much weight as the average boat or camper that gets hauled to the lake on weekends. Yes, the new F-150 will clobber the Colorado in towing -- today's top-spec F-150 can drag 11,300 pounds down the road. But Chevrolet may be on to something with Colorado.
Pickups have ballooned in size in the last 20 years, while smaller trucks have withered and died to the point they are almost extinct. It makes no sense to develop a small truck, such as those sold by Datsun, Toyota, and Mazda in the '70s and '80s, because few other vehicles could be built off the same architecture. And once all the required safety and comfort features are added, that small truck would probably be too expensive to sell profitably.
GM's strategy of offering two sizes of light-duty trucks may just work. But pricing -- to be announced later this year -- is crucial. The first-generation Colorado showed that if the two trucks are separated by only a few hundred dollars, most consumers will choose the bigger truck. If Colorado costs thousands less than Silverado, it'll find an audience. Either way, come this fall, consumers looking for a fuel-efficient, lightweight truck will have more than just the F-150 from which to choose.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

State of the Union January 14, 2014

January 14, 2014 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

• Van sales picked up in December. Combined sales of the Express and Savana were 9747, up 11.8% over 2012. Here’s how the rest of the segment fared:
  2013 2012 Change Share
Ford Econoline 12,460 11,999 +3.8% 43.8%
GM 9,747 8,717 +11.8% 34.3%
Mercedes Sprinter 2,828 2231 +26.8% 10.0%
Ram Promaster 1,872 --- --- 6.6%
Nissan NV 1,512 1250 +21% 5.3%
Ford Transit Connect 3,787 3776 +.3%  
Nissan NV 200 793      


The strong sales month depleted field supplies to 47 days from 68 at the end of November. For the 2013 calendar year GM van sales were 95,792 vs. 97,458 for 2012, a drop of 1.7%. GMC cutaways accounted for all of the decline and then some, slipping 3600 units. As you can see, it didn’t take long for the Ram Promaster to surpass the Nissan NV in sales. Ford is expected to begin production of the long-awaited full size Transit, which replaces the Econoline, later this year. Looking at midsize pickups, Toyota sold 12,761 Tacomas in December, down 9%. For the year they sold 159,485, up 12.8%. Nissan sold 5411 Frontiers last month, up 46.7%. For the year they sold 62,837, up 13.4%. So the segment is already growing even before we get involved.

Mark your calendars - GM is expected to announce 4th quarter and full year earnings on Thursday, Feb. 6. (profit sharing currently stands at $5500)

From the Detroit News: Mark Reuss, GM’s North American president, admits his company is taking a risk with its three-size truck strategy across two brands. Smaller pickups, GM believes, will offer customers a greater number of options and help the Detroit-based automaker meet federal fuel efficiency standards. But Reuss isn’t afraid that GM’s strategy won’t keep pace with Ford’s, which includes one popular nameplate — the F-Series — and a huge gamble on aluminum parts to help its trucks shed weight to meet the same fuel economy targets. “It’s wild,” Reuss said in a recent interview. “I’m loving it.” GM and Ford have important truck debuts at next week’s North American International Auto Show: GM, Sunday, re-introduced the midsize GMC Canyon pickup — sister of the already unveiled Colorado.

The two are being added back to its lineup. On Monday, Ford unwrapped its next-generation F-150, a truck much lighter than the current model thanks to more extensive use of aluminum in the body. The market segment of smaller pickups — known as midsize trucks — has declined for decades. And extensive use of aluminum in pickups is an untested approach. While truck owners are overwhelmingly brand loyal, there’s a real chance GM or Ford — or both — is choosing the wrong strategy for some of their most profitable vehicles.
“This could be a defining moment for Ford and the truck segment as a whole,” said Alec Gutierrez, an auto analyst at Kelley Blue Book. “Ford is subdividing the F-150 lineup to reach buyers and GM is using a multi-vehicle approach across the entire pickup segment,” said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting for research firm LMC Automotive. Both could be successful approaches, he said, but “it’s not a slam dunk in either case.”
LMC’s Schuster said Chrysler had been considering a smaller truck, more like Honda Motor Co.’s Ridgeline (Chrysler’s Ram brand has shelved any plans to build a midsize truck, said spokesman David Elshoff). Honda said it will debut a new Ridgeline within two years and Schuster said it’s possible more automakers could look at smaller trucks to win younger buyers. IHS Automotive predicts the midsize truck segment will grow from about 1.6 percent of sales today to 1.9 percent or 2 percent of the industry by 2015 or 2016. Reuss said federal fuel economy regulations are part of GM’s business decision to offer midsize trucks. In 2016, automakers must meet Corporate Average Fuel Economy ratings of 35.5 miles per gallon in the U.S. He said the Colorado is some 900 pounds lighter than the Silverado. Jeff Luke, GM’s chief truck engineer, said the anticipated EPA sticker figures will top the fuel economy of the Silverado, Sierra and old Canyon and Colorado, which at best hit 25 mpg on the highway.
“If you look at this graphically and mathematically, you can’t get to an efficiency place that this truck is going to offer no matter what you do to a full-size pickup truck,” Reuss said during an interview with reporters at the LA Auto Show at which Ford executives were seen checking out the Colorado. “And so if you try and do it, all you’re doing is adding cost and not getting the return of the mass out of it.” Ford thinks differently, and although its goal is not to match the weight differential between GM’s full-size and midsize trucks, it could come close. The Dearborn automaker wants to shed at least 250 pounds — and upward of 750 pounds — from each of its vehicles to boost fuel efficiency.

From the Chattanooga Times Free Press: Volkswagen and the United Auto Workers union leaders say they are continuing to talk about how a works council may be created in Chattanooga to help bring workers and managers together to plan car production. But both sides say any decision about union representation at the VW plant in Chattanooga should be made by the hourly employees at the facility. Volkswagen of America’s new chief executive, in his first comments on union organizing efforts at the company’s Chattanooga plant, said Monday he will accept whatever workers at the factory decide on the issue. “Democracy is an important part of American culture,” Michael Horn said at the North American International Auto Show. “That’s a fundamental view I have personally,” he said. United Auto Workers chief Bob King said a majority of Volkswagen plant employees in Chattanooga have signed cards supporting organizing efforts and that he isn’t opposed to an election at the factory. “Card check is the fastest way” [to recognizing the union], he said. “We’re big supporters of workers having the right to decide representation. We favor elections.” King also said he doesn’t want an adversarial relationship with U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and he desires a collaborative one with Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, R-Tenn., who have both criticized the unionizing effort at the plant and worry about its impact on economic development in the state.
Tom Brune