GM workers in Silao Mexico are looking to replace their union due in part to claims of lax covid protocols. In interviews with Bloomberg, 5 GM workers in Mexico disclosed the conditions at the plant. Their stories range from an employee getting Covid and being forced back to work quickly without being tested to workstations that were not socially distanced even after 2 employees on the team died from the virus. GM’s Mexico office says that it has followed recommendations from the Mexican authorities and the CDC. A little over a month ago, Mexico’s Federal Labor Ministry required the union to hold a new vote to ratify the collective bargaining agreement after the Ministry found “serious irregularities” in the vote held in April. These irregularities include destruction of some ballots and unions refusal to hand over vote counts to independent auditors.
Ford hired Franck Louis-Victor to lead the new business unit. Louis-Victor is a 48 years old ex executive from Renault. He will now oversee the autonomous vehicle and mobility services team known as Ford X. Ford X lists its goal is to “unite entrepreneurs, designers and engineers to envision, build and validate new mobility ventures” and to “shape the future of transportation.
Amazon has reportedly ordered 1000 autonomous trucks from Plus.ai. Rumors are Plus.ai will be going public soon with a reverse merger with another company and Amazon may be looking for up to 20% ownership in the company.
Oshkosh says they will be building next generation delivery vehicles for the $6 billion, USPS contracts in Spartanburg South Carolina. Production is scheduled to start in mid 2023. Ford will be supplying several of the parts for this project including engines, transmissions, and many other parts for both gas and electric variants. Oshkosh declined to disclose the financial agreement they have with Ford.Tesla’s gigafactory outside of Berlin is moving its opening back from the earlier announced July 1st to “later this year” after many setbacks from design tweeks, government regulations and many other delays. This will be Tesla’s first factory in Europe but it has still not been approved by the government which could obviously cause even more problems.
Toyota will be lifting some mask mandates in July for it american plants. They will require employees to show proof of vaccination and wear a company badge indicating that they have been vaccinated.
Chip orders lead times are getting longer. Right now, leading chip manufacturers average lead times from order to delivery of chips has continued to increase and it is up to 18 weeks which is the longest lead time recorded since the company started tracking the data. Although many auto manufacturers keep stating that the chip shortage should start to smooth out in the 3rd quarter of this year. Although I really do hope that this is a reasonable timeframe, I do not see any evidence to support this. I have heard many more dire estimates from chip manufacturers like Intel and Nvidia that expect this to affect supply for possibly years to come.
Many dealers across the country are selling or just closing their doors. This is because of many factors like ownership nearing retirement age without a succession plan but I would suspect that the uncertainty of the future of the automotive industry and the recent inventory disaster has to weigh heavy in those decisions. For instance, the majority of the dealership profits usually come from parts and service sales and with EVs being pushed so heavily and them not requiring nearly as much maintenance, some dealers might see this as the writing on the wall.
