UAW strike....the end of affordable US made cars

Don M.

Don M.

SF VIP
Location
central Missouri
If the UAW gets its way, the US manufacturing of affordable cars will soon be history. Most US cars and small SUV's, under the price of $35K, are already made off shore, and the bulk of cars in that price range are foreign brands.....many of which ARE assembled here. Soon, about the only US brand vehicles that are "made in America" will be the full size and pricey pickup trucks....$50K, and up, price range. As we transition to EV's, more and more American factory jobs will disappear.

The UAW may be accelerating the day of their own demise.
 

Don M. said:
If the UAW gets its way, the US manufacturing of affordable cars will soon be history. Most US cars and small SUV's, under the price of $35K, are already made off shore, and the bulk of cars in that price range are foreign brands.....many of which ARE assembled here. Soon, about the only US brand vehicles that are "made in America" will be the full size and pricey pickup trucks....$50K, and up, price range. As we transition to EV's, more and more American factory jobs will disappear.

The UAW may be accelerating the day of their own demise.
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Those companies will do what other big national companies have done ie have most ICE or gas cars made at non union plants. And do it by contracting out the assembly. If they keep assembly in the US the blowback won't be as bad. Worked for a big national company that started shifting work to a newly created LLC and before you know it ALL of that work was done by the LLC.

Between supply chain issues and capital investment in EV production the supply of gas cars are to low which keeps prices high. Throw in all the different models they make cost will remain high. The only way to drop or control prices is to simplify the choices or make the customer wait/order if they want a particular color, feature etc.
 
One of their "asks" is that workers making EVs get the same compensation as workers on normal car lines. Well they're not having that, so they've stopped building at least one new EV battery plant entirely. The race to the bottom continues.
 

The middle class will soon be history. Kids being born today will have no idea what we once had as a great society. When we only have the upper crust and the lower class left, there won’t be much else left. I saw a huge piece of equipment being hauled down the highway this morning. It appeared to be a huge truck for hauling coal. It probably cost around a half million dollars. It had the “Cat” logo on it.

I remember reading Ford lost a load of money on their EV line last year. I think about $4.5billion.
 
Profits at the “Big 3” auto companies—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis— skyrocketed 92% from 2013 to 2022, totaling $250 billion. Forecasts for 2023 expect more than $32 billion in additional profits. epi.org
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Without worker compensation the Middle Class continues it's slide downward.

The middle class, once the economic stratum of a clear majority of American adults, has steadily contracted in the past five decades. The share of adults who live in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. pewresearch.org
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dilettante said:
One of their "asks" is that workers making EVs get the same compensation as workers on normal car lines. Well they're not having that, so they've stopped building at least one new EV battery plant entirely. The race to the bottom continues.
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Yesterday, the Provincial Government of Quebec announced a seven BILLION dollar battery manufacturing plant will be built there, to open in 2026. The Quebec Provincial Government will invest one billion dollars in the project. The Canadian Federal Government will invest one billion dollars in the project. The company was approached in 2019, by the Quebec Minister for Development, in a e mail. That was the start of the process to attract this major development. Why Quebec ? It has the largest proven deposits of lithium in the world. Lithium is used in building electric vehicle batteries.

Meanwhile in St Thomas, Ontario, a second massive battery plant is under construction to provide batteries to Ford Canada and Volkswagen.

link. Quebec Announces New Battery Plant - Bing News

JImB.
 
It's the greed of the company, not the UAW, who is at fault. That's what is different, their excessive greed, not worker demands.
 
It's always amazed me that if employees get a raise, it will be the end of the business. The company will be priced out of the market. When was the last time you had $600, and rode out the dealership with a brand new Ford? So car companies figured out how to raise prices along time ago. CEO Tavares only had a 14% increase in pay last year. He is struggling by on $21,000,000, but to make ends meet, he got a $2,000,000 bonus. Just think, he only got a 14% pay increase ( the smallest increase he's gotten) and the company didn't go out of business.
Every time, they raise the minimum wage, all the fast food places were supposed to go out of business. Now, there isn't a McDonald's or a Buger King in the entire US.
 
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WhatInThe said:
Even before this strike auto loans are the next housing bubble with people taking out 7 year loans on a CAR, not a house or RV a car.

Car Debt Is Piling Up as More Americans Owe Thousands More Than Vehicles Are Worth

The numbers are ridiculous all the way around.
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I used to have a one man repo business here in Toronto. My sole customer was a large group of GM dealers , 11 of them. I shut it down in 2012 at age 66. I have recently been approached by one of the leasing managers, asking if I would like to run a training course for their in house recovery agents, to teach them how I do it.

Leased vehicles are clearly owned by the Leasing company, so if the payments are 90 days or more behind, the vehicle is going to be recovered. I found out that the leasing vehicle portion of their business is in serious trouble, due to the extended terms of the contracts, and the lax credit checks.

My course is a 4 day program, that covers the whole process from start to recovery. The leasing sales people are also included, to teach them how to do an effective credit background on the potential customer. By weeding out the shaky applications at the start, the dealer reduces their costs and the need to go out and "pull the car back ".

Chasing non payers today is a lot easier than it was before the rise of the internet and social media. In general, if you find the person, the vehicle will be close at hand. One of the standard practices now on leased vehicles is installing a covert tracker device when the vehicle is first delivered to the customer, that can be activated if the payments stop. Makes recoveries a lot less difficult. JimB.
 
Control gets easier with the new doo-dads on EVs, and to a growing extent on all vehicles. Geo-tracking, limiting hours of operation, travel to permitted travel zones, charging hours, ... perhaps other things my imagination fails to name.

"What, you wanted to drive on a road over 55 MPH?
Sorry, you didn't subscribe to that! Limited-access highway use disabled.
Download the Shovrolet Wieners' Circle app to get started."

"Parking at Wallwart is always free.
Just install our loyalty chip and make at least $300 in purchases each month for lot access."

"The seatscale shows you failed to reach your weight loss goal his week.
Health insurance premiums now increased 15% and Dr. Mofungo has dropped you as a patient.
Park the car and see the center display for the Federal B-Z-Bonz health center app to browse for new doctors able to accept you.
Allow 60 days for coverage to resume."
 
Our oldest Great Granddaughter will graduate HS this coming Spring, then plans to start college shortly thereafter. She and her parents have been shopping for a nice slightly used economy car, but when they find one, the dealers want 90%+ of the price of a new one....and they have very few new ones on their lots. All the dealers seem to have an excess of is large full size pickups, and SUV's. It will probably take a recession to restore some "sanity" to the automobile market.
 
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Don M. said:
All the dealers seem to have an excess of is large full size pickups, and SUV's.
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That’s what most buyers seem to want. Look at a parking lot.

We drive a sedan. Pull out of an intersection and shrubs and signs have been installed with consideration being designed with a higher level vehicle. Same in a parking lot. Invariably a big vehicle will be on either side. Thank goodness for our cameras and warning sounds that alert us to other vehicles and people coming. I wish we had bought an SUV.
 
I follow a guy who sold cars and ran dealerships for like 45 years. He and his son are now running a company that tries to help consumers buy cars without getting ripped off. Part of their mission is to convince dealers that screwing customers is not the only policy that can ensure success.

One thing they point out is some crazy stuff going on the last couple of years. That includes inflated new car OEM sticker prices and dealer added "market adjustments" that jack the price up even more. Other killers are extra crap and options added to cars by the distribution network and the dealers themselves. That also includes things like shifty and often overpriced "extended warranties." Another thing going on is producing more vehicles at high trim levels and models that are simply more expensive compared to basic models which they're making less of.

Then there is the EV push. OEMs are taking losses trying to keep their EV production volume at levels high enough to qualify for government subsidies, and they make it up by raising sticker prices on normal cars. Dealers are getting stuck paying interest on the loans they use to buy the darned EVs which are sitting on their car lots, unwanted by consumers. So they charge more for normal cars to help make up that cost. This also spills over to the used cars they sell as they scramble to cover the cost of cars that aren't selling (both EVs and fancy-trim trucks and SUVs) because consumers can't afford them or just don't want them.

That's North America, but the same sorts of things are probably at work in Europe and elsewhere.
 
What workers get paid will have a minimal effect on price of a product. In capitalism, we don't charge what we need, we charge whatever we can get, and whatever we can get has little to do with how much it costs to make. When workers get more of the pie, top level management gets less, but the end price is that the cost is whatever we are willing to pay. In theory, costs can become so high that no profit can be made, because no one will buy, and the company goes under. Workers know this. The unions know this, as well as the CEO.
 
I just bought a new car/truck last week.
Went pretty smooth.
Passed a truck on Saturday, liked it, Monday morning at the dealer for a test ride and bought it.
I traded in a 2018 Jeep Wrangler for a GMC Canyon.
I love to haggle, its part of the game.
Got my trade up 2K, lowered the MSRP on the truck 1K, had them reduce the Doc fee. Dealers are going crazy with doc fees. They wanted $650 documentation fee. I asked them to show me the documents that cost $650 to produce. They didn't. We went back and forth and got the doc fee down to $50. Plus I got a $500 military discount.

The problem with unions is they want to reap the rewards when times are good, but don't want to take a cut when times are bad. That doesn't work, so the companies lay them off. And please, don't compare senior managements pay to workers. Its not a fair measurement.
I hate unions. Worked for one once, never again.
 

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