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General Motors to Lay Off 2,000 Employees in Ohio and Michigan
- simonswords82 10y agoThis news is obviously important and shows a key trend in the vehicle industry but dailymail is utter garbage as a news source and in no way trustworthy for facts. Would recommend truth seekers visit one of the following: http://fortune.com/2016/11/09/general-motors-layoffs-ohio-michigan/ http://fortune.com/2016/11/09/general-motors-layoffs-ohio-mi... or http://www.reuters.com/article/us-generalmotors-layoffs-idUSKBN13431E http://www.reuters.com/article/us-generalmotors-layoffs-idUS...
- FuNe 10y agoI agree and sorry for linking to dm piece (I'll be more careful next time). I see though the link was changed - not by me though (you cannot change a link after submission which would be handy). Also it would be more appropriate/accurate as it now appears that I submitted a link which I actually did not. @HN admin
- phmagic 10y agoInteresting, little is mentioned of re training workers for their new products
- ssharp 10y agoThe factory that makes the Cruze is set up to make the Cruze and it will continue to make Cruzes, just 16 hours a day instead of 24. They might be able to work in another model on the same platform as the Cruze but they can't build Cruzes for 16 hours a day and then switch to building trucks. GM does typically offers reassignments but maybe workers expect to be called back at some point.
- whistlecrackers 10y agoDifferent plants. BoF vs. unibody.
- angry_octet 10y agoPeople are buying more trucks and SUVs and fewer small cars? I mean, I get that people are climate change deniers, but there is no need to be rude about it.
- dugditches 10y agoYes. The price of gasoline at the pumps has gone down due to the dip in Oil Markets. So people were drawn back to SUVs and Trucks. I don't many give much thought to Climate Change. Lots of people drive Trucks with Crewcabs as a social symbol rather than a work vehicle. And could easily get by with a Car. There's a certain masculinity tied to it. People are able to easily get more money loaned to afford these more expensive vehicles as well.
- cema 10y agoNot sure about trucks but modern SUVs have a good mpg rating. About as good as recent sedans.
- maxerickson 10y agoThe best trucks are around 25 mpg highway, sedans can be over 30 mpg (it's a big category; a larger, high performance sedan will use more fuel than a smaller one and so on). Which is comparable, but it also ends up being an extra gallon of fuel every 100 miles (on a base of about 3 gallons per 100 miles).
- imgabe 10y agoThe biggest gains are at the lower end. Far more gas is saved by going from 10mpg to 20mpg than from 20mpg to 40mpg. Just look at the math: 10,000 miles per year at 10 mpg = 1000 gallons of gas 10,000 miles per year at 20 mpg = 500 gallons of gas 10,000 miles per year at 40 mpg = 250 gallons of gas You save 500 gallons going from 10 -> 20 mpg, but only 250 gallons going from 20-> 40. Of course it's best to use the highest mpg you can, but the benefit drops proportionally as it gets higher, so it's harder to justify the extra expense when a lower mpg vehicle (but still relatively high) might be much less expensive to buy and maintain and possibly even have less environmental impact to manufacture. After all someone has to mine the Lithium etc. in all those batteries.
- test1235 10y ago> is a response to what the company believes will be a continued shift from cars to crossovers and trucks. What's a 'crossover'?
- lallysingh 10y agoLooks like an SUV from the outside, but based on a unibody. Not body-on-frame like traditional trucks.
- hellogoodbyeeee 10y agoIt's a vehicle that is larger than a car but smaller than an SUV. They generally look like tiny SUVs
- tubbs 10y agoExamples would include the Toyota RAV4, Jeep Renegade, Audi Q5, BMW X1/X3/X5/X6, Ford Edge, Nissan Juke, and the beloved Pontiac Aztek.
- loudmax 10y agoNewer model Subaru Outback is a good example. It looks something like an SUV, but the shape shows that it descended from a station wagon, not a pickup truck.
- ssharp 10y agoAlmost all SUV's are crossovers these days, including the three row ones. There are still some on truck frames like the Suburban but the market has almost entirely shifted. I assume they're cheaper to build that way, lighter, and also drive more like a car than a truck.
- RankingMember 10y agoI think the big reason we see more unibody SUVs/trucks is that people don't need the body-on-frame rigidity as much as the automaker needs to meet CAFE standards (in the US at least).
- tlrobinson 10y agoI have to wonder if the timing of this announcement isn't a coincidence, given the relevance to Trump's platform, and Ohio and Michigan being swing states...
- rubyfan 10y agoYes, looks like they tried not to sway the vote. But yeah, I'm sure this isn't the first layoff in these states anyway, which is probably why they went Trump. I wonder if there will be more layoffs and an offshoring scramble in the lead up to Trump taking office for fear of his administration enacting penalties, etc.
- snsr 10y ago> But yeah, I'm sure this isn't the first layoff in these states anyway It certainly isn't, and this won't be the last.
- phkahler 10y ago>> what the company believes will be a continued shift from cars to crossovers and trucks. This part hints (to me anyway) that they may have waited for the election. Trump seems to be a fan of fossil fuels, so that would suggest cheap oil will be around for a while and people will be more willing to buy bigger vehicles. The article also points out that these vehicles are not selling well enough to support 3 shifts, so it probably has very little to do with union concerns. I suspect it's just a straight business decision based on a market forecast which was solidified by the election. They probably waited a bit for the election to feed that into the forecast.
- closeparen 10y agoFrom GM, anyway. I see plenty of small cars around, but they're the Prius, Civic, Accord, Corolla, Camry, Fit, Golf, and Mazda3.
- dangerboysteve 10y agoThere is no doubt this was timed and the democrats asked GM to sit on this news until after the election.
- johndoez 10y agoTwo long term trends: automation car sharing/hiring Both mean that in the case of autos, Trump won't be able to bring manufacturing home in terms of jobs.
- pavlov 10y agoIn energy policy, Trump wants to make coal more affordable compared to renewables. Applying similar logic, he should work to enact legislation to prohibit automated vehicles or make them very expensive so they can't be deployed widely. In 2020, Trump can point to this piece of legislation and tell voters: "Silicon Valley billionaires tried to put a million truckers and taxi drivers out of work, but I prevented that!" I wonder how that would sit with Peter Thiel. Anyone who expects the upcoming all-Republican government to be innovation-friendly may be in for a rude awakening. I have a feeling that many "job protection" solutions from Congress will be similar in spirit to the state laws that prevent Tesla from selling cars directly. In other words, there will be more legislation that's friendly to established business but hostile to SV's cherished "disruption". (Republican voters said loud and clear that they haven't liked being disrupted.) EDIT: I expanded this comment into a post on Medium: https://medium.com/@pauli/disruption-in-america-please-hold-d997d6cf9461 https://medium.com/@pauli/disruption-in-america-please-hold-...
- lifeisstillgood 10y ago> Republican voters said loud and clear that they haven't liked being disrupted. This is a perfect comment.
- Spooky23 10y agoGreat point. People pay too much attention to the republican rhetoric about reduced regulation, spending, etc. The reality is that they help out their friends. There's only one way to generate jobs for coal miners.
- phkahler 10y ago>> There's only one way to generate jobs for coal miners. Subsidize electric vehicles?
- willyph 10y agoThese layoffs are simply part of the cyclical nature of the automotive industry and the continual flux of consumer preferences.
- sfifs 10y agoIndia actually uses a rather simple strategy to keep car jobs. We simply tax all car imports at 100%. Full car kit imports that need to be assembled in India are taxed at a lower rate and companies that manufacture and setup local supply chains get tax concessions. Guess how global car manufacturers respond. In a labor heavy supply chain like car manufacturing, it still boggles my mind why major consumer markets like the US would allow easy car imports at all.
- kylehotchkiss 10y agoAmerican lawmakers love their German cars :D
- jandrese 10y agoIt will be interesting to see Trump attempt to follow through on his promise to eliminate NAFTA and slap tariffs on imported goods. Somehow I doubt he will have a lot of support from congress on that goal, as pretty much every senator and representative is in the pockets of big multinationals who have already moved their manufacturing overseas or to Mexico. This is one area he really can't ignore. A lot of people voted for him because he promised to bring their jobs back and they're very keen on seeing manufacturing return to the US.
- thenewwazoo 10y ago> in the pockets of big multinationals Your comment dismisses any concern that tariffs could be a bad thing, and ignores literally hundreds of years of research and experimentation that shows trade barriers to have negative effects on economic health and international peace. He may have little support from congress because congresspeople believe it to be _a bad idea_.
- jandrese 10y agoI suspect your average Congressman has never read a single one of those studies but have gotten letters from donors telling them that they want free trade deals. It's pretty hard to convince someone in Pennsylvania that free trade deals are good for them when the only factory in town just shut down because China flooded the marked with unbelievably cheap steel.
- thenewwazoo 10y agoI'm not really arguing the relative merit of free trade in terms of local effects. I'm questioning your premise that, in order to oppose tariffs, one must be somehow bought by corporate interests.
- thomaskcr 10y agoI understand tariffs aren't good when taken alone, but what else can you do to put the US on an even playing field? We want to have strict environmental laws, which make manufacturing more expensive and then companies move to where there is no EPA so we lost jobs and new laws are a net negative for the environment. My opinion is that there should be tariffs to make up for the differences in laws anywhere without similar laws - if you want to pay workers pennies a day no problem, but you're going to pay the difference on the way in. China might let you destroy their local environment but you'll pay for the effects of your pollution on the way in. Trade deals should come with negotiations that will help us with our global warming problem at the very least - if you want to have a trade deal you'll need to match or beat the regulations we follow or the tariff will reflect an approximation of the difference in cost. I think that it is a bit problematic that the majority of those for free trade also want policies that discourage domestic manufacturing like an increase in minimum wage and increased environmental regulations.
- greenpizza13 10y agoIf Trump doesn't do anything about this will they finally believe he's not really interested in anything but their votes and money?