Recent Automotive News – If it weren’t for bad news….

If it wasn’t for bad news we might not have any automotive news. Manufacturers across the world are still announcing output cuts. Toyota is cutting global output by 40%, which makes a potential loss of 170,000 units. Ford announced they will be idling their plant in Germany and GM will be idling Bolt EV production at their Orion assembly plant, as this is just the latest in a long line of part related cancellations and delays.  Many of the auto manufacturers earlier this year were claiming that things would start to smooth out in Q3. Here we are in the middle of Q3 with no progress in resolving the parts shortages and production problems, it seems to still be getting worse from my perspective. With GM and Ford stock dropping more than 10% in the last 30 days, it seems that the curtain has been pulled back a little as to the “record” profit numbers that these companies have been claiming.  

3 Democrat Senators sent a letter to Taiwan’s de facto ambassador asking for more help with the ongoing chip shortage. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, both Senators from Michigan and Sherrod Brown, a Senator from Ohio, praised Taiwan’s effort in addressing the shortage and asked for continued support moving forward.

Stelantis recalls more than 200,000 Ram trucks due to a side airbag rupture risk. The NHTSA is stating that the vehicles’ airbags inflator end cap can detach or the inflator sidewall may rupture.  Both situations can cause the end cap to be sent flying through the cab of the vehicle.  This recall affects certain 2015-20 Ram 1500 Classic, 2015-16 Ram 3500 and Ram 2500 and 2016 Ram 3500 Cab Chassis vehicles and I would recommend checking on the NHTSA website to see if your vehicle is affected.

GM has paired with AT&T to bring 5G into vehicles.  This partnership will bring high speed connectivity to new vehicles coming off of the assembly line.  Higher speed connectivity will be a must as GM moves further toward self driving and automated vehicles.

Several weeks ago I reported on a GM union vote in Silao Mexico that was required by the Mexican government to cast a revote due to some very shady circumstances around missing ballots and lack of third party oversight. This vote was to keep or change the current collective bargaining agreement or to have it scrapped.  Now that the votes have been cast with a system of checks and balances it turns out that the union members would like to scrap their current collective bargaining agreement, the opposite of the shady vote helder earlier. This outcome is a huge loss for one of the most powerful unions in Mexico as this will allow individuals to choose independent groups that they feel will best represent their interests. This is a huge step in auto workers actually being able to negotiate their own work conditions and wages and moving away from the unions that are so often in the news headlines for fraud and embezzlement.