Category Archives: manufacturing

Ford to Upgrade, Expand South African Plant for 2022 Ranger

Silverton will become one of the first Ford plants globally to achieve “Island Mode” status, becoming entirely energy self-sufficient and carbon neutral by 2024. The plant also will manufacture Volkswagen pickups trucks as part of the Ford-VW alliance. Continue reading

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Ford to Manufacture Mustang Mach-E in China

Ford will also localize production of the Mustang Mach-E’s GT performance edition in China, a first by a global automaker to locally manufacture high-performance editions. The GT high performance edition will adopt a front and rear dual-motor layout, joining the 3-second club with its impressive 0-100km/h acceleration capabilities. Continue reading

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Promoting Aluminum – Constellium, Novelis Form Alumobility

Automakers of course continue to use lightweight, high-strength, aluminum, as well as steel, plastics composites – carbon fiber and the like, to make vehicles. Alumobility has developed technical studies that address the next-generation aluminum door and an all-aluminum structural B-pillar. It claims aluminum can effectively compete with other materials for mass production vehicles at an attractive cost to manufacturers. Continue reading

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Volkswagen Ends Production of Golf For US Market

First sold in December 1974 as  the “Rabbit” in the U.S. with a 1.5-liter engine with 70 horsepower, almost 2.5 million Golf family models have been sold in the U.S. market. The current Mk 7 Golf debuted for the 2015 model year – an eternity in terms of technical advances, quality and customer satisfaction practices in the auto industry. Continue reading

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GM to Make CAMI a Commercial Electric Vehicle Plant

This investment and Canadian workforce will make CAMI into Canada’s first large-scale auto plant converted to produce electric delivery vehicles. GM says work begins immediately to transform the CAMI over the next two years from Chevrolet Equinox production to the production of EV600s, to serve the growing North American market for electric delivery solutions. Continue reading

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Union Strike Saves Rolls-Royce Jobs in Barnoldswick

The hamlet of Barnoldswick, home to11,000 people, rallied in defense of their community. The Rolls-Royce factory, in operation since 1943, is the birthplace of the jet engine and the main employer there. The shuttering would have had devastating consequences for the prosperity of the local community. Continue reading

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Latest Ford Restructuring – Brazil Manufacturing to Cease

Production will cease immediately at Camaçari and Taubaté in Brazil, with some parts production continuing for a few months to support inventories for aftermarket sales. The Troller plant in Horizonte, Brazil, will continue to operate until the fourth quarter of 2021. As a result, the company will end sales of EcoSport, Ka and T4 once inventories are sold. Manufacturing operations in Argentina and Uruguay and the sales companies in other South America markets are not affected. Continue reading

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Setback – Ford Motor and Mahindra End JV Discussions

The failure “was driven by fundamental changes in global economic and business conditions – caused, in part, by the global pandemic – over the past 15 months.  Those changes influenced separate decisions by Ford and Mahindra to reassess their respective capital allocation priorities,” Ford said. Ford in AI’s opinion is on track to lose $400 billion this quarter. Ford and Mahindra announced an alliance in September 2017, and it was expected to be operational by mid-2020. Continue reading

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New LG and Magna Joint Venture in Powertrain Electrification

The new company, tentatively called LG Magna e-Powertrain, is said to combine Magna’s strength in electric powertrain systems and automotive manufacturing with LG’s expertise in component development for e-motors and inverters. The stated goal is to hasten both partners’ growth in the electric powertrain market. The market for e-motors, inverters and electric drive systems is expected to have significant growth between now and 2030, and the JV will target this fast-growing global segment.The question in AutoInformed’s opinion is to how many electrification parts and services will be brought in-house by automakers and how much will go to suppliers? Continue reading

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Ford Motor Announces Safety Defect Recalls on 2020-21 Ford Explorers, E-Series, and Lincoln Aviators

Ford Motor Company issued three safety recalls in North America this morning. Recalled are 2021 Ford E-Series vehicles with the 7.3-liter engine, as well as 2020-21 Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator SUVs. Continue reading

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Hendrick Motorsports Making Chrome-Moly Steel Roll Bars for New GM Defense Infantry Squad Vehicle

A key supplier is North Carolina-based Hendrick Motorsports, which brings its extensive experience developing race cars in NASCAR’s high-load, high-risk environments. Hendrick is responsible for providing the chrome-moly steel exoskeleton of the vehicle frame, including the ISV rollover protection system. Continue reading

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GM Investing $76 Million in Tonawanda, Parma Plants

The Tonawanda investment will be used to increase capacity on the engine block machining line and the Parma investment will be used to construct four new metal assembly cells to support increased truck production volumes. Continue reading

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US, Mexican Volkswagen Plants to Link with Industrial Cloud

The Industrial Cloud is an IT platform, designed to gather and analyze data from all connected Volkswagen Group facilities on a real-time basis to help increase efficiency and productivity. Volkswagen’s three North American plants are the first outside Europe to be networked with the Industrial Cloud. The three Volkswagen locations are expected to be connected by the end of the year. As early as spring 2021, Chattanooga, Puebla and Silao could access standardized software applications that are available for all factories in the Volkswagen Group connected to the Industrial Cloud. Continue reading

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Whither US Vehicle Sales in 2021? Is 14 Million a Stretch?

AutoInformed puts it to you thus: This is the market price of failed ideologies grimly held by blind true-believers who ignore real data-backed consequences, scientists, epidemiologists, economists and political scientists to their own detriment – if not indeed their own self destruction. Continue reading

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Mazda to Buy Out Sumitomo from MMVO, a JV Plant in Mexico

Given the ongoing effects of soon-to-be ex-president Trump’s losing trade wars with Canada, Mexico, China and Japan, among other nations, and the uncertainty around provisions of a new trade agreement now called USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement), Mazda remains at risk on multiple fronts. The new Agreement went into effect, with no apparent enforcement, started on July 1, 2020. The U.S. Congress has still not ratified it. Continue reading

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