Jeep News: Rumorpile: FCA To Convert An Idled Engine Factory Into A Grand Cherokee Plant

[William Maley]

Since 2012, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' Mack Avenue Engine II plant in Detroit has been idled. But new reports from CNBC and The Detroit News say the factory will be retooled to build a new three-row Jeep Grand Cherokee for the 2021 model year.

According to sources, the reopening of the plant would allow FCA to begin retooling the Jefferson North Assembly Plant - which sits across from the Mack Avenue complex. This would allow Jefferson North to start producing the next-generation two and three-row Grand Cherokee. Reopening Mack II could bring up to 400 jobs back to Detroit.

“FCA is essentially out of capacity. They’re kind of running up against being against full capacity. This is a very different situation than what GM is dealing with,” said Jeff Schuster, an analyst with LMC Automotive to The Detroit News.

Last month, FCA was using 92 percent of its plant capacity in North America, due to the increase in demand for trucks and utility vehicles. This is noticeably higher than General Motors (72 percent) and Ford (81 percent) according to data from LMC Automotive.

FCA and the office of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan declined to comment.

An announcement about this retooling is expected to take place next week.

Source: CNBC, The Detroit News

View full article

[A Horse With No Name]

Yep....product is a problem at Ford and GM. Toyota, honda, Hyundai, Kia, Benz, BMW, VW, Subaru, and others also build cars in the US and are not idling plants en masse.

Not saying all GM and Ford products are bad...just that they need to work harder at being competitive.

Even though I am the spiritual opposite of Cmicassa here in that I love a lot of foreign cars....I will even go out on a limb for GM. The big problem at GM is the front office, not the design studio or the assembly line. Promote and market what you have GM.

GM really does under perform in terms of quality of product and sales. They need marketing. Badly.

End of rant.

Edited December 7, 2018 by A Horse With No Name

[Robert Hall]

6 minutes ago, A Horse With No Name said:

 The big problem at GM is the front office, not the design studio or the assembly line. Promote and market what you have GM.

GM really does under perform in terms of quality of product and sales. They need marketing. Badly.

 

That is nothing new, though...GM has had these issues for decades. 

[A Horse With No Name]

34 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

That is nothing new, though...GM has had these issues for decades. 

....and failed for decades to solve them. Cue Lucy, Charlie Brown, and Football.

[riviera74]

You also have to remember that GM and Ford are much larger than Chrysler ever was.  GM should call FCA and sell them an idled factory after FCA gets this one converted.

[A Horse With No Name]

5 minutes ago, riviera74 said:

You also have to remember that GM and Ford are much larger than Chrysler ever was.  GM should call FCA and sell them an idled factory after FCA gets this one converted.

This would make a lot of financial sense.

[Suaviloquent]

I wonder why American makes can't look at Hyundai/Kia as examples of persistence... in the car market.

 

GM used to have an above average warranty too, wonder if that change netted in lost buyers. Only makes sense if warranty work cost more than extra sales, LOL GM...

[G. David Felt]

1 hour ago, riviera74 said:

You also have to remember that GM and Ford are much larger than Chrysler ever was.  GM should call FCA and sell them an idled factory after FCA gets this one converted.

Tesla seems interested in buying them.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-07/musk-to-the-rescue-as-tesla-may-consider-buying-idle-gm-plants

 

[A Horse With No Name]

42 minutes ago, dfelt said:

Tesla seems interested in buying them.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-07/musk-to-the-rescue-as-tesla-may-consider-buying-idle-gm-plants

 

Good...get ICE cars off of the road and Electrics on the road.

[riviera74]

4 hours ago, Suaviloquent said:

I wonder why American makes can't look at Hyundai/Kia as examples of persistence... in the car market.

 

GM used to have an above average warranty too, wonder if that change netted in lost buyers. Only makes sense if warranty work cost more than extra sales, LOL GM...

Maybe because GM and Ford are not part of very large conglomerates, well-shielded from imports in the domestic market.  It is easy to forget that Hyundai/KIA are part of a larger Korean chaebol that can push something to the nth degree because Hyundai is SO WELL protected at home and is a larger conglomerate than GM ever was (even in the 1950s).  In Korea, Hyundai makes all sorts of consumer products that GM has not made since GM sold off Frigidaire years ago.  Some Koreans are very loyal to Hyundai or Samsung or LG back in South Korea.  Because of that (Japan has this too), it is very easy to take on risks that a smaller, less diversified corporation like GM or Ford simply do not take.

[G. David Felt]

11 minutes ago, riviera74 said:

Maybe because GM and Ford are not part of very large conglomerates, well-shielded from imports in the domestic market.  It is easy to forget that Hyundai/KIA are part of a larger Korean chaebol that can push something to the nth degree because Hyundai is SO WELL protected at home and is a larger conglomerate than GM ever was (even in the 1950s).  In Korea, Hyundai makes all sorts of consumer products that GM has not made since GM sold off Frigidaire years ago.  Some Koreans are very loyal to Hyundai or Samsung or LG back in South Korea.  Because of that (Japan has this too), it is very easy to take on risks that a smaller, less diversified corporation like GM or Ford simply do not take.

Many do not understand the Chaebol of Korea or the Keiretsu of Japan. These business groups are so tightly tied together that they have a dominance that US businesses cannot do here due to our laws. This will always make it hard for US businesses in the Asian rim.

China has their SOEs (State-owned Enterprises) that pretty much do the same thing as the Korean or Japanese groups. These SOEs do not want to have attention on them so the business groups go by the term Qiyejituan. These are huge and equal in size to most of our Fortune 500 companies, some may even be considered Fortune 100.

https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/the-critical-role-of-business-groups-in-china/

Good overview if you want to learn more about them.

• Korean = Chaebol
• Japanese = Keiretsu
• Chinese = Qiyejituan

 

[balthazar]

2 hours ago, riviera74 said:

In Korea, Hyundai makes all sorts of consumer products that GM has not made since GM sold off Frigidaire years ago.

"Since" ; OK. but GM was in a huge swath of industries over it's history, many long forgotten at this point. A lot of them are the same ones hyundai Corp is in, too.

[G. David Felt]

11 hours ago, balthazar said:

"Since" ; OK. but GM was in a huge swath of industries over it's history, many long forgotten at this point. A lot of them are the same ones hyundai Corp is in, too.

So then some will make the assumption that Hyundai will go the same path as GM, while others will say they learned from history of loosing focus and will stay a massive company.

Families learn that wealth building is all about putting differences aside and having heads that focus on their one area to be the best and grow the over all wealth. This is something that many Americans ignore and fail to learn from why Asians have built some massive wealth.

We do have Americans who have built massive empires and that shows in Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, but we should never stop learning from competition in other counteries too.

Thanks for pointing out the valid history points here, you rock!

[balthazar]

Business is always cyclical, ALL companies plot their history via the Bell Curve. GM was there first in a personal transportation centered multi-armed conglomerate, and all others followed, learning (and some would say 'stealing') from the innovation GM pioneered.

I do not jump on the bandwagon of saying 'GM lost focus'- they could do some things better, some things differently, but other things they are arguably the best at currently.

Automotively, hyundai has only 3 SUVs and 5 sedans, and 0 trucks. They are behind the curve WRT current market trends here.

Edited December 8, 2018 by balthazar

[riviera74]

2 hours ago, balthazar said:

Business is always cyclical, ALL companies plot their history via the Bell Curve. GM was there first in a personal transportation centered multi-armed conglomerate, and all others followed, learning (and some would say 'stealing') from the innovation GM pioneered.

I do not jump on the bandwagon of saying 'GM lost focus'- they could do some things better, some things differently, but other things they are arguably the best at currently.

Automotively, hyundai has only 3 SUVs and 5 sedans, and 0 trucks. They are behind the curve WRT current market trends here.

Here maybe, but elsewhere in the world Hyundai/KIA fits right in.