Cuts and halts in production: has the engine of the auto industry stopped?
2024 is off to an uphill start for the auto industry, with factories closing and production interrupted. And electric isn't pulling enough to save the workforce: even Tesla is considering layoffs
After Covid and the semiconductor crisis, these should have been the years of restart, also thanks to the electric car. Instead, almost everywhere, the engine of the auto industry seems to have stopped or, in any case, is coughing noticeably. What is going on?
HAS THE SUN SET IN… THE EAST?
In Italy there are not only the workers of the former Fiat lines of Mirafiori and Pomigliano who fear for their future, especially after the words of the CEO Carlos Tavares , but also those of Maserati, especially following the closure at the end of last year of the historic hub wanted by Sergio Marchionne. Production of the Maserati Levante in Mirafiori will end on March 31st, which currently consisted of 25 examples of the SUV launched in 2016 churned out daily by the Turin lines.
Without the Levante, daily production of the Trident will drop by a third to just 8 units per day split between the Ghibli, Quattroporte, GranTurismo and GranCabrio models. For this reason, the unions are strongly asking for the assignment of a new model to guarantee current employment values.
FROM FORD TO STELLANTIS, THE AUTO INDUSTRY IN GERMANY IS IN TROUBLE
But it is not the only situation that is alarming the blue collar workers at Stellantis who, with reference to Opel, have scheduled eight days of reduced work in the Eisenach plant in Thuringia where the Grandland is exclusively produced. However, if the commitments of the industrial plan are maintained, that plant will be used to produce the Stla Medium of the new Peugeot 3008.
The German car industry, as Start has said on several occasions , has been in trouble for a long time. Among the most worrying situations are those concerning the fate of the now former Ford plant in Saarlouis, for which Berlin hoped to find a foreign buyer, also looking to China.
Ford has reached an agreement with the German metalworkers union IG Metall on the halt to the plant's industrial activities: the agreement provides for 3,500 redundancies out of a total workforce of 4,500 people. The House of the Blue Oval has committed not to proceed with forced layoffs for operational reasons until 2032. It is a "tears and blood" agreement which suggests that at the moment no interested investors in shining armor have come forward .
DOES TESLA ALSO GO ON A DIET?
According to rumors in the US press, even Tesla is probing which positions to cut. Elon Musk 's car company must in fact become competitive again and recover from the disappointment of having been overtaken by the Chinese BYD in 2023 on the productivity front.
Not only that: the price war unleashed by the owner of X and SpaceX has especially hurt Tesla . Therefore, the rumors according to which the management asked individual managers to draw up a list with the positions to be maintained and those expendable do not seem so far-fetched. A sinister census that seems to herald a season of layoffs.
WHAT IS THE CAR WORLD WORRYING?
According to the fifth edition of the AlixPartners Disruption Index , the survey carried out every year by the global consultancy firm on the changes taking place, the automotive world appears very pessimistic. The index among managers fell to 72, down from around 75 in 2023 and 78.1 in 2022, but still above the 70.62% in 2021, one of the worst years in the history of the automotive sector (there were still several lockdowns here and there, especially in China).
In general, i.e. taking the responses from all sectors (telecommunications, tech, etc.), 66% of managers of large companies globally are worried about the impact of the American presidential elections, 68% fear tensions with China and consider new technologies, especially generative artificial intelligence, the biggest opportunity for next year, while 63% highlight their company's inability to keep pace with technological change. Specifically, the automotive world particularly fears the ecological transition and Chinese boldness.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/tagli-stop-produzione-crisi-industria-auto/ on Sat, 17 Feb 2024 06:57:06 +0000.