Analyst: Strike at GM 'Is Really About the Switch to Electric Cars' (marketwatch.com) 331
MarketWatch just published an interesting analysis by the head of automotive industry consulting at one of America's top business advisory firms. It argues that a strike by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union at General Motors is really about the future of the electric car:
UAW members' anxieties and uncertainties are actually shared by General Motors (GM) and most other automakers, which know that it's no longer a question of when internal combustion engine cars will be replaced by electric vehicles, but how quickly the changeover will take place. The shift to electric means a fundamental transformation of what workers will do and how many are needed to do it.
Electric cars have far fewer parts, which means far fewer people are needed to put them together. When one analyst took apart a Chevrolet Bolt and Volkswagen Golf, he found that the Golf had 125 more moving parts than its electric counterpart. What's more, the electric vehicles' parts are often easier to put in place using automated machines. The UAW's own estimates that the move to electrification may cause 35,000 members to lose their jobs may not be the most scientific study ever done, but it's also probably not far off.
GM has attempted to appease the UAW with specific promises, including the construction of an electric battery plant in one of the Ohio cities hit hardest by recent factory closings. But even this tactic has only confirmed the UAW's worst fears: The battery plant won't need as many workers, and GM would prefer to pay them less than what other workers make at plants that require more complicated assembly.
The article concludes that "None of this is anyone's fault. GM is trying to respond to a global trend that it needs to follow in order to stay relevant. The UAW is trying to protect its members."
But he argues that the U.S. is already at risk of falling behind foreign auto-makers, and "it would just make a lot more sense if the people that we need to compete globally were working together as a team, rather than fighting each other."
Electric cars have far fewer parts, which means far fewer people are needed to put them together. When one analyst took apart a Chevrolet Bolt and Volkswagen Golf, he found that the Golf had 125 more moving parts than its electric counterpart. What's more, the electric vehicles' parts are often easier to put in place using automated machines. The UAW's own estimates that the move to electrification may cause 35,000 members to lose their jobs may not be the most scientific study ever done, but it's also probably not far off.
GM has attempted to appease the UAW with specific promises, including the construction of an electric battery plant in one of the Ohio cities hit hardest by recent factory closings. But even this tactic has only confirmed the UAW's worst fears: The battery plant won't need as many workers, and GM would prefer to pay them less than what other workers make at plants that require more complicated assembly.
The article concludes that "None of this is anyone's fault. GM is trying to respond to a global trend that it needs to follow in order to stay relevant. The UAW is trying to protect its members."
But he argues that the U.S. is already at risk of falling behind foreign auto-makers, and "it would just make a lot more sense if the people that we need to compete globally were working together as a team, rather than fighting each other."
Happening for years (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the big reasons why auto makers have been putting touch screens and computerized garbage on the dash is because it's cheaper and simpler to manufacture than real buttons and knobs (even if the usability of touch screens is way worse). It's not the move to electric cars specifically, but the move to more electronics in general.
Also, I'm not really sure that this means much at the final assembly level. Most manufacturers don't build the engines and transmissions in the same factory as the cars. Hell, many manufacturers don't even build their own engines and transmissions, even if they are branded with their name.
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Informative)
Also, I'm not really sure that this means much at the final assembly level. Most manufacturers don't build the engines and transmissions in the same factory as the cars.
It makes a difference. Most of the drivetrain in electric cars are installed as pre-assembled modules. The motor module connects to the differential (or one motor per wheel) and that's about it. The battery pack is installed as one module, then you run some wires to the controller module. Sometimes there are some cooling hoses to hook up, and that's it.
With an internal combustion engine you have radiators, gas lines, pumps, exhaust systems, multiple fluid fills, multiple stages of engine testing and tweaking - it's quite a bit more work.
Hell, many manufacturers don't even build their own engines and transmissions, even if they are branded with their name.
Pretty much every major car manufacturer designs and builds their own engines. They are usually built in the same factory, and might be built in a distantly related business unit (Volkswagen/Porsche/Audi/Bugatti/Bentley/SEAT/Skoda is a good example of this) but it's the same company. The other exception is, in the US at least, all of the foreign car companies build their engines and transmissions in their home countries and ship them over to the US for final assembly. I don't think there is a single Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes, or Volkswagen engine factory in the US.
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Informative)
There is a large Nissan engine / drivetrain plant in Decherd, TN.
https://usa.nissannews.com/en-... [nissannews.com]
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Informative)
There has been a Toyota engine plant in Huntsville Alabama for over a decade. It surpassed 6 million engines produced in August 2018.
https://businessalabama.com/to... [businessalabama.com]
A bit of Google magic turned up a Honda engine plant in Ohio which produces over 1 million engines annually and BMW considering plans to build a second engine plant in the US.
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Informative)
Pretty much every major car manufacturer designs and builds their own engines.
Yes, but of late there has been a bit more interest in cross-manufacturer sharing. There's always been some but there's usually been more sourcing them from non-auto-manufacturers, like Ford using Yamaha engines in SHOs for example (because Ford couldn't make an engine that good, FO SHO.) There are a few current examples in this jalopnik article [jalopnik.com] and some others in this fucking slide show [motor1.com] (I hate those, but there it is.) Hmm, here's some more examples [autocar.co.uk], and here are some more [hotcars.com] (again, a mix of new and old.)
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In light of that, the idea that GM is convinced electric is the future is hilarious. Toyota more or less tried to give them the Prius, after showing them how to build a productive work force, but GM was too dumb to see the opportunity.
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Insightful)
That's really the problem. Traditional automakers outsource most of their parts to OEMs. They primarily make (and assemble) chassis, engines, and transmissions.
With EVs, the engines are obsolete, the transmissions are obsolete, and the existing chasis designs only suitable for subpar "retrofit" EV designs (EV chasis are best designed to be electric from the ground up). So what exactly do they have? With expense can switch over their chasis / assembly lines to make EVs, but the engine / transmission infrastructure is basically a writeoff.
If they want to keep employment figures up, they need to vertical integrate... heavily. Battery plants are a start. But operations cost are only a small part of the value chain of a battery factory; your three primary costs are capital, energy, and raw materials. If they want to keep labour up, they need to diversify into capital (e.g. making their own cell lines), energy (e.g. installing solar on their plants and the like), and raw materials (primarily nickel sulphate and lithium chloride).
Otherwise? Well, hello downsizing.
This sort of stuff - alongside the UAW corruption scandal that's seen a number of their leaders go to jail - also shows how lucky Tesla is to have dodged the UAW bullet. I support unions (and am a member of one), but hope that UAW never sets foot inside a Tesla factory (I hope instead that they form their own internal union, like Tesla-Grohmann did after they rejected IG Metall).
Re:Happening for years (Score:4, Interesting)
Neither vertical integration nor downsizing are really necessary in your scenario though. GM still needs those batteries, even if they're not making them themselves. Those batteries need to be designed, even if not by GM. And there will be a factory, even if GM is not running it. These UAW engineers can just put on their big-boy pants and do what the rest of us have been doing for ages now: Change companies and jobs when the old one becomes unviable or just no longer suits us. Instead of working for GM, they'll just move to Acme Battery Co. And, as is the norm, they'll almost certianly land a better salary when they make the move anyway.
Re: Happening for years (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, most people don't want to move their families to China or Mexico or wherever the new industrial outsourcing hotness is going on.
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Informative)
There is no such thing as an "electric engine"; they're electric motors, they're far simpler, and assembly is almost entirely automated. The gearbox is generally integrated and is fixed gear, with assembly nearly or entirely automated. Lastly, regardless of whether you think that optimal EV chassis are different, they are. The pack forms the floor, which alters the geometry down there , the motors sit between the wheels rather than in an engine compartment under the hood, and altogether the weight distribution and loadbearing needs are entirely different due to the restructuring. Air intake needs are greatly reduced as well, but overall streamlining is more important. Brakes don't need to be able to handle as much wear, but need to be able to tolerate long periods of relative disuse, and to release the rotors quickly. The suspension needs to be designed for the lower vehicle centre of gravity. Pretty much everything changes.
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think there is a single Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes, or Volkswagen engine factory in the US.
How about next time you do your homework instead of "thinking" you know the answer?
Honda[1] built 1.4M automobile engines, 1.2M transmissions, and 1.7M general purpose engines in the US in 2018.
Toyota[2] builds engines in Alabama.
Nissan[3] builds engines in Tennessee
BMW[4] is considering adding engine production in the US.
VW[5] builds engines in Mexico (Yes, I know you said US, not Mexico; it's still North America.)
[1] https://hondainamerica.com/man... [hondainamerica.com]
[2] http://www.madeinalabama.com/2... [madeinalabama.com]
[3] https://www.nissanusa.com/abou... [nissanusa.com]
[4] https://www.greenvilleonline.c... [greenvilleonline.com]
[5] https://media.vw.com/en-us/rel... [vw.com]
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Some automakers are moving away from touch screen now. They realized it's difficult to manage while driving and a safety hazard.
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Re: Happening for years (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Insightful)
Touch screens are fine on devices which are primarily made to be held and looked at, such as tablets or similar devices, like the Nintendo Switch Lite.
In a car, without looking at the controls, people can use the controls on their dashboard while driving. Every switch and knob can be felt by hand. It's impossible to do that with a touch screen. Everyone knows that, and anyone claiming that there's no difference between the two is trying to push you into using touch screen controls.
Yes, you can memorize where the buttons are on your touch screen, but you cannot know for sure what is currently displayed on the screen without looking at it. And the next software update could change something so your automated movements made by muscle memory will become useless.
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Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Insightful)
The big problem I see is a major conflict: your eyes can only look at one thing at a time - and if you're driving, that one thing should be the road.
Operating a touch screen requires looking at it - sure, maybe you can eventually memorize where things are on the screen, but good luck positioning your finger over that point without looking. Heck, try to push a button on a normal dash on the first try, without touching the dash before hand. Good luck - you find the button by feel, and then push it. You can't do that with current touch screens (though there may be potential for those shape-changing touch-screens some universities are working on.)
One alternative could be some sort of gesture-based interface (pie menus?) that depend on relative motion rather than absolute positioning of the initial touch - but I haven't heard of any automakers exploring that route.
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I doubt it. I expect the vast majority of people just look, same as they would with a touchscreen. "Fiddling with the radio" is a factor in many crashes, as is "the baby was crying" or "the kids were fighting."
That's what the GP was saying about assumptions. Until you have data, you're just making assumptions, usually ones that are convenient to the particular point of view you want to push.
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But to have real, actual data, we would need always-on, always-recording in-cabin videos of the driver to really know what caused the accidents.
Re: Happening for years (Score:3)
That's a big difference with a glance to gather proprioception context of where your finger is and then letting tactile interfaces take over from there.
Once you find the volume knob, you do not have to keep looking to see if your finger strayed.
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Audio volume up/down; track/station change; pause/mute; autopilot/tacc speed +-; autopilot/tacc distance +-; voice commands.
And to anyone who thinks that they "don't look" when they use physical buttons that aren't in reach of your hands' resting position: you absolutely do, you just think you don't. An experiment:
1) Think up a list of random letters, then type them, one at a time, without looking at your fingers. Easy, right? Good accuracy, right?
2) Now lift your hands
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Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is cars with too many controls to fiddle with. Most of it should be disabled when the car is in motion, anything you don't need to actually drive should only be adjusted when the car is stationary.
So having 200 buttons and having no buttons are both bad. What you need are buttons for things you need while driving, and a touchscreen for everything else. And make the touchscreen disable while in motion.
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Insightful)
And make the touchscreen disable while in motion.
Some of us have this thing called "passengers".
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Touch screens are fine on devices which are primarily made to be held and looked at, such as tablets or similar devices, like the Nintendo Switch Lite.
In a car, without looking at the controls, people can use the controls on their dashboard while driving. Every switch and knob can be felt by hand. It's impossible to do that with a touch screen. Everyone knows that, and anyone claiming that there's no difference between the two is trying to push you into using touch screen controls.
My new Renegade has taken the software approach of many ways to do things. It has a touch screen radio. It has mechanical knobs and back of the steering wheel knobs. It has a digital speedometer and tach, and it has an old school round speedo and tach. heting and air conditioning the same, knobs and touch screen.
At first I thought it was like the department of redundancy department, but you can use each aspect to its own best use. An example is Sirius stations have a lot of info that you shouldn't be loo
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The lifecycle of a vehicle makes roll-out a bit difficult, though. Most models only go through significant change every 5-7 years and development starts 5 years before that.
Re:Happening for years (Score:5)
PARIS: Look, we could spend weeks trying to solve this, but we've got a ticking clock. Engines are working, weapons systems are online. I say we launch now and hope for the best.
TUVOK: Mister Paris, that is perhaps the most illogical statement you've ever made. Unless we find a way to reconfigure the structural integrity field the hull will incur microfractures during descent.
PARIS: Microfractures, Tuvok. Doesn't necessarily mean we'll have a hull breach.
TUVOK: And if we do, I suppose these useless design elements from your Captain Proton scenario will compensate for the problem.
PARIS: Hey, every one of these knobs and levers is fully functional.
TUVOK: And completely superfluous.
PARIS: Maybe to you. I am tired of tapping panels. For once, I want controls that let me actually feel the ship I'm piloting.
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That he would spend years of his life in a garage on a holodeck "working" on a '57 Chevy is the most retarded thing ever. [...] This is more gay '50s nonsense where idiots like Berman were trying to pander to the older crowd.
No, it was just another way [youtube.com] for Trek to copy Babylon 5 [youtube.com], which after all had worked out so well with Deep Throat 9. It's also dumb anyway because a Starfleet-trained officer ought to be able to build a '57 Chevy in a couple weekends, unless it's from scratch. Did he mint the photons himself?
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It was only a short dialog for unaware audience. ...
A ship that has artificial gravity and momentum control, won't let you feel anything
If they where smarter (the authors) then they wold introduce real cockpits where compensating technologies are reduced to 90% or 99% so the rest of the crew feels nothing and the pilot feels something in the 3g range. (And yes the pilot would be strapped in, the whole cockpit an emergency capsule, super air bags etc. p.p.)
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Try a Lada one day. The shock absorbers are easy to find, they are in your spine.
Re:Happening for years (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, I'm not really sure that this means much at the final assembly level. Most manufacturers don't build the engines and transmissions in the same factory as the cars.
The "final assembly level" is irrelevant here, as the end result will be the loss of LOTS of jobs in the automotive sector. And in the US, most of those are UAW. FTS: "The UAW's own estimates that the move to electrification may cause 35,000 members to lose their jobs may not be the most scientific study ever done, but it's also probably not far off."
I live in Canada and have family in Oshawa, which was pretty much a GM company town before the company started moving jobs to the US. The grief there is nothing like what Detroit has experienced; still, I have some sense of the impact this kind of workforce reduction will have. It ain't gonna be pretty - and this is just the beginning.
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Interesting)
as the end result will be the loss of LOTS of jobs in the automotive sector. And in the US, most of those are UAW.
There are roughly 175,000 businesses in the United States that do mechanical automotive repair, with more than two-thirds of them being small, family-owned businesses...
... and employing around 800,000 mechanics.
https://autodub.com/automotive... [autodub.com]
https://www.economicmodeling.c... [economicmodeling.com]
And very few of them are unionized, certainly none of the mom and pop shops.
That 800k number is going to be so substantially reduced (my guess is at least 50% by 2030) by the electric market that the 30k lost UAW jobs will look like peanuts.
Re:Happening for years (Score:4, Insightful)
You're going to have to figure out what percentage of auto repair work is on the powertrain to make that estimate accurate. There's lots of other stuff in the vehicle. It's certainly going to eliminate whole classes of repair, but it won't eliminate repair entirely.
Re:Happening for years (Score:5, Insightful)
Exhaust, spark plugs, alternator, radiator, water pump, fuel pump, fuel injectors, cambelt, catalytic converter, timings, oil changes... So many things don't need doing on an EV. Even break wear is massively reduced.
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Re: Happening for years (Score:3)
Their market is not going away that quickly. Even if all new vehicles went electric today, it would be 10 years before the independent shops even started to notice. And as electrics are forced into being a larger portion of new car sales, we may see people clinging longer to their old gas models, especially in the northern latitudes and rural areas. Maybe some of the shops will just need to migrate out of the "bluer" suburbs.
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Even if there wasn't less work to do in assembly, a big change like moving to electric cars is the perfect time to modernize your assembly. Sure the engines are a lot less complicated, but there's a lot more wires running through your car now that you have rearview cameras and lots of other gadgets in cars, I'm not sure the assembly is really that much simpler.
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It is true that power train and engine are made separately - but many times those workers are UAW also.
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"Computerized garbage"... are you still using a flip phone?
Technology advances, and companies, industries, and workers need to advance themselves in order to remain relevant.
Smashing the weaving looms isn't going to work today. Other companies will deliver what people want if you decide they shouldn't want that and should just continue to want what they've always been offered.
let's make cars that only last 150k (Score:4, Insightful)
That way people have to replace them sooner.
GM was the original brand that focused on new models as fashion and trend setting. And put forward the idea that last year's model wasn't something you wanted to be seen in.
This car upgrade treadmill, with a warranty that barely lasts past the first mechanical breakdown, is how the industry accidentally set up a very quick transition to electric cars.
Re:let's make cars that only last 150k (Score:5, Insightful)
That way people have to replace them sooner.
This sentiment is the perfect example of the kind of short-term thinking that prompted my sig.
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It's a good idea, actually. If the car makers could all sit down and agree on a standard platform, they could sell interchangeable "shells" to convert a sedan into a city cargo truck or a crossover, etc. Single? Buy a platform and Model 3 shell from Tesla. Got a family now? Sell the Model 3 shell and buy a minivan shell from GM. Going on a long summer vacation? Rent a camper shell. Stronger platforms could simply be taller to accommodate for the bigger motors and batteries. Shells need to be made for a wide
Re:let's make cars that only last 150k (Score:5, Interesting)
My 2008 Hyundai is up to 160k miles now, and the biggest thing I had to replace was the timing belt. It hasn't exactly been perfectly maintained either... It was once driven 20 miles at speed with the transmission completely drained of fluid, and the motor overfilled. (Never let idiots borrow your car.) The motor never sounded the same after that, lost a couple of MPGs and a few HP - but the car still runs in daily use, years later - Tank.
Before that I had a 2002 Ford Ranger. Before it got to 100k miles, it needed a $3500 transmission rebuild. By 115k, it needed a complete transmission replacement. (And that's with proper maintenance.) - Tonka.
I think what's killing American automakers is competition. In the future that will be electrics, but they've been losing to better combustion engines for decades now.
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I think what's killing American automakers is competition. In the future that will be electrics, but they've been losing to better combustion engines for decades now.
Some of the American engines are great. Unfortunately, they are all big V8s. The only Americans really trying to make badass small engines are at Ford, and while they have great output they never deliver the kind of fuel mileage they were supposed to. And Ford's best engine is a big V8.
Also, America has made all the best diesels for ages. Cummins is a God among diesel manufacturers, with only one notable failure (V555 and friends.) Unfortunately, we've also made the worst ones. International and Ford have t
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Hey, if it works for Microsoft...
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
What a pointless sentence (Score:2, Funny)
it's no longer a question of when internal combustion engine cars will be replaced by electric vehicles, but how quickly the changeover will take place.
What's the difference between asking when and how quickly something will takes place?
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it's no longer a question of when internal combustion engine cars will be replaced by electric vehicles, but how quickly the changeover will take place.
What's the difference between asking when and how quickly something will takes place?
Nobody (except a few mossback conservatives who are in denial about it) is asking when the switch to electric cars is happening because it is happening right now. It is, however, perfectly rational to wonder how long the switch will take if you are a combustion engine car specialist. I know I would be asking myself that question if I was a combustion engine car specialist and hadn't seen the writing on the wall years ago. My next move after the light bulb moment when it finally hit me that the combustion e
Re: What a pointless sentence (Score:2, Insightful)
Mossback conservatives? Do you mean UAW Union bosses?
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There are conservatives in unions, despite what the propaganda might say. Unions are there to facilitate workers making equitable agreements with their employers. It's equivalent to having a lawyer to represent you in court. You need the lawyer for the same reason you need the union - because it isn't a perfect world, and an honest outcome is not guaranteed. Sure, there are Supermen out there who can do it all on their own. There's also people who never end up in court, or never have to get a job. But most
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I saw this interview with a woman in Trump/Coal country a while ago.
Tangential (but then so is your gratuitous reference), Trump won in far more than just coal country.
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is the understatement of the year
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Decades of union dues to fund US politics with
The Truth, Hurts. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The article concludes that "None of this is anyone's fault. GM is trying to respond to a global trend that it needs to follow in order to stay relevant. The UAW is trying to protect its members."
The UAW is trying to save a dying profession. If people don't want to find fault in that, then fine. But you might be hard pressed to find value in it.
Maybe... (Score:3)
...they should learn to code?!?
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
...they should learn to code?!?
'Coding' is already being driven down to the level of sweatshop work, and that's a growing trend. A huge influx of 'coders' will turn all but the upper echelons of programming into the equivalent of non-management retail jobs; that kind of programming work won't pay anywhere near even the now-depressed wages typical of an automotive production line.
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woosh [newrepublic.com]
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Maybe ... ...they should learn to code?!?
Oh GOOD GOD. We've already got Pottering with his wonderful SystemD. (Which is great, as long as you don't want reliability in non-standard cases.)
... actually, I guess I do ... but development and implementation is more important than grinding out yet another duplica
And NOW you're basically asking for SystemE? (Or I guess that would that be SystemG -- Gas, instead of Engine.)
You want to see a great "improvement" in Code Quality? Just ask the UAW workers to fix it. (I don't mean to be disparaging
Re:The Truth, Hurts. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The article concludes that "None of this is anyone's fault. GM is trying to respond to a global trend that it needs to follow in order to stay relevant. The UAW is trying to protect its members."
The UAW is trying to save a dying profession. If people don't want to find fault in that, then fine. But you might be hard pressed to find value in it.
The UAW is trying to ensure that GM re-trains as many of the combustion engine specialist they currently have working for them as possible and re-employs them in the new electric car assembly factories instead of shuttering the factories and moving all the jobs to Mexico/China/India. Now you can piss all over the UAW for doing that, but it's kind of what the UAW was founded to do and they are not breaking any laws by looking out for their members.
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"The article concludes that "None of this is anyone's fault. GM is trying to respond to a global trend that it needs to follow in order to stay relevant. The UAW is trying to protect its members."
The UAW is trying to save a dying profession. If people don't want to find fault in that, then fine. But you might be hard pressed to find value in it.
The UAW is trying to ensure that GM re-trains as many of the combustion engine specialist they currently have working for them as possible and re-employs them in the new electric car assembly factories instead of shuttering the factories and moving all the jobs to Mexico/China/India. Now you can piss all over the UAW for doing that, but it's kind of what the UAW was founded to do and they are not breaking any laws by looking out for their members.
The Truth I was speaking of, is the reality that every future will require far less humans in manufacturing.
The UAW can fight and re-train to an extent. The simple fact is you're going to need 10 - 20% of the UAW workforce you have today, to do the same mission tomorrow, regardless of where you manufacture. That is what I meant by dying profession. I truly hope the UAW is successful in every endeavor, but they should be careful to avoid creating the illusion that the majority of their representatives wi
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The UAW is trying to ensure that GM re-trains as many of the combustion engine specialist they currently have working for them as possible and re-employs them in the new electric car assembly factories
How many workers does it take to make electric motors compared to ICEs? 1%? Less? How masturbatory, especially since those people will eventually be automated away completely. And lest you think they can all become machine repairmen, THEY will be automated away as well. Robots will become more modular and other robots will take modules off of them and drop them into shipping crates to be sent off for rework. And guess what else? Rework is increasingly being done by robots. Armed with a schematic and layout,
The Twinkie survives (Score:2)
I recall the union refusing to give in to the Hostess restructuring. They refuse to reduce works or take a reduced wage in which Hostess was no longer able to compete. They both lost in the end.
https://www.newyorker.com/news... [newyorker.com]
Re:The Twinkie survives (Score:5, Insightful)
I recall 10 CEOs each taking successively larger retirement packages out of Hostess over 10 years while doing nothing to come to an agreement with the union, all while blaming the union for the ills of a company they themselves were mismanaging, but then that's typical for US businesses. Drive the company into the ground, blame the unions for trying to hold onto their livelihoods, "retire" with a massive golden parachute. And hey, when the company finally tanks you can borrow a bunch of money, leverage a buyout and scrape a bit more profit off it's corpse while you restructure it to try to pay off it's previous debts plus the money you borrowed.
Honestly, it's not foreign competition that's killed American manufacturing, it's our own greed and self interested lifestyles. "Fark everyone else, I got mine" is not a motto for growth and stability.
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There's still going to be a lot of manual labor that goes into building a car, but the reduction in the labor force won't be as massive as when agriculture was mechanized at the turn of the century.
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Buggy whip manufacturers fear backlash as new horseless carriages gain popularity.
New "mechanical ice boxes" leave ice-cutters in the cold, threaten entire industry.
Lamplighters fear their jobs could be extinguished as the streetlights are converted to electric.
Pinsetters set to strike as bowling alleys modernize.
Switchboard operators left on hold as mechanical systems take over.
=Smidge=
Reaction to that (Score:5, Insightful)
And reaction the modernisations:
The US ultra-capitalistic's reaction :
"...and those pesky worker unions are preventing us to switch to modern tech ! We're going to be left behind! See there's nothing good with employee empowerment. That's what 'Socialism' (pardon the cuss-word) brings to you! Death to the workers' unions!!!"
The Evil Euro-Communists' reaction :
"...well that's why we have social welfare and unemployment benefits in most of European countries, so these workers won't be left starving on the street when their work becomes useless. Instead, they can survive financially and eventually retrain for a different field of work or find something else."
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Eventually, the Euro-Communists will pay them welfare and phony public jobs for the rest of their lives so they have NOT to retrain. Yeah, what i just wrote sounds completely stupid but it is what my country of origin did and is still doing. It is sort of why i have left for the evil ultra-capitalistic country.
That said if the UWA obtains re-training for their workers it is the smart thing to do and i wish them good luck.
I wish we had a more rational social security system here in the U.S. Less influenced b
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People are seeing this coming from far away, so they have plenty of time to prepare and avoid unemployment.
And in "US ultra-capitalistic" their response is not to actually prepare but demand others pay the price.
Which is actually funny because that is what they say is the main problem with "socialism" (or whatever they think socialism is)
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Buggy whip manufacturers fear backlash as new horseless carriages gain popularity.
New "mechanical ice boxes" leave ice-cutters in the cold, threaten entire industry.
Lamplighters fear their jobs could be extinguished as the streetlights are converted to electric.
Pinsetters set to strike as bowling alleys modernize.
Switchboard operators left on hold as mechanical systems take over.
=Smidge=
God, I wish people were still writing headlines like that instead of the clickbait tripe we get now.
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Video rental stores can't fast forward to new streaming services.
Travel agents put on permanent vacation by on-line booking.
Payphone installers can't make change as cellphones take over.
Brick-and-mortar crumbling to competition from Amazon.
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My point being, we've been down this road dozens if not hundreds of times one way or another since the industrial revolution.
There's a difference between having sympathy for blue collar workers and enforced obsolescence for the sake of maintaining jobs that no longer need to be done. Industry in the US is so risk-averse as a whole that we're constantly playing catch up. Yeah it sucks but it's also inevitable, so you either push forward and hope to pioneer new ground, or you resist and die where you stand.
=S
The problem is leadership (Score:2)
from the very top on down. While the ROW ditches fossil fuels for cleaner alternatives, we are bringing back coal. In 10 years the ROW will be solar, wind, tide, and geo powered and we'll start down that path and wonder why there are no US companies making the equipment that generates the power.
In the meantime, US automakers will still be making gasoline powered cars and diesel trucks so the UAW can keep people in their jobs. Meanwhile, self-driving electric trucks and cars will eliminate the jobs of hun
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A word of advice to UAW workers... don't change your career to driving trucks or taxis, or working in coal mines.
Frycook-work for interstate charging-station-restaurants might be a good alternative. No longer will motorists gas and go. The Nisson Leaf takes around 40 minutes to charge at a charging station. And people gotta eat. Sure, they won't make the high end of their GM assembly line jobs or have any benefits, but they'll probably be less miserable and much better fed.
Switch to electric. (Score:2)
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Potential conflict of interest here... (Score:3)
Who pays the piper -- potentially -- calls the tune.
In this case, the author of this opinion piece is Daron Gifford, 'Partner, Strategy Consulting Services Leader, Automotive Industry Leader, Commercial Due Diligence Services Leader' at a consulting company. He may be right (which I doubt it - currently, hybrid cars are more cost-efficient than pure electrics), or he may be wrong, but the potential conflict of interest is certainly here.
Sad really... (Score:2)
GM can be more helpful to their workers too (Score:3)
Yes some jobs will go away, but others will be created. GM can help their employees - and even help themselves if they get to it - by recognizing the opportunities here.
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The switch to electric will bring with it other expanding demands and job fields that did not significantly exist before hand. The changing production will greatly increase battery demand; where will the batteries come from?
They can build battery factories and retrain some workers to work there but it still wouldn't be enough for all the laid off workers.
People will need chargers installed in their houses, who will do that? Companies and public parking locations will want them as well, and people will need to install those too. Some people will also be interested in other green investments (in particular solar arrays and home battery arrays), and there will be demand for installers and engineers of such systems.
Sure, but most of those jobs won't be in the (former) factory towns where all these workers live. Those jobs will be in other places, likely places where cost of living is much higher. So GM would have to retrain their factory workers to be installers, pay to relocate them, and pay them livable wages in those new cities for that to be a viable alternative. That also means u
Automated factories ...not electric Cars (Score:2)
Volkswagen built near completely automated factories years before electric vehicles were even a thing ...outside the USA
The USA car manufacturing is simply finally catching up with the rest of the world, it was delayed by the protectionist tariffs on cars ....
K^h Carma (Score:4, Insightful)
The General Motors EV1 was an electric car produced and leased by General Motors from 1996 to 1999.[2] It was the first mass-produced and purpose-designed electric vehicle of the modern era from a major automaker, the first GM car designed to be an electric vehicle from the outset along with being the first and only passenger car to be marketed under the corporate General Motors (GM) name instead of being branded under one of its divisions.
General Motors EV1 [wikipedia.org]
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EV for my next car. (Score:2)
I am seriously thinking of an EV for my next car - there are now models out there with a range > 200 miles.
It isn't just the reduced labor to build the cars. Maintaining them is simpler and cheaper as well. A lot of the regular service items for a regular car just go away. No more timing belts, no more oil changes. No more starter, no more alternator. All of that stuff is gone. What you are left with is simple stuff - rotate tires, check FE alignment, cabin filter, and top off windshield fluid.
The
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I'm kinda surprised that most people still stick with ICE for lawnmowers. Ride-on mowers I grant you get expensive with it, but if your lawn is small enough it seems a much better choice. I'm guessing the major reason is the tendency of a lot of people to romanticize ICE power, associating it with being "tough" then it's actually a horrible, horrible, technology that's always been a stop gap because of the lack of good electric storage systems.
Mostly it's about price. I bought an E-Go myself 3 years ago and am so glad I don't have to fuck with oil changes and gas cans and new spark plugs and air filters anymore.
But it cost more than double what an ICE lawnmower cost, at the time. That's a huge premium for the 60%+ of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck. Yes it eventually pays for itself, but that up front cost is hard for a lot of people to deal with. That and millions of homeowners already had a working ICE lawnmower when E-Go released the
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I am seriously thinking of an EV for my next car - there are now models out there with a range > 200 miles.
The one thing that has kept me away is the cost of replacing all the batteries after 7 years. My current car is about 10 years old, still functioning, and I believe keeping a car for it's life (cheaper that way), but I will be handing that car off to my kids and getting a new one soon.
From all I've seen, the cost to replace all the batteries every 7 years outweighs any savings you get in fuel.
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The one thing that has kept me away is the cost of replacing all the batteries after 7 years.
It's not at all clear that this is necessary.
The 7-year estimate is from accelerated wear studies on battery technology that's about 3 generations old now. Real-world wear is not ending up as bad as predicted by these studies.
Even then, you're talking about a reduction in range, not the battery becoming useless. So if you do a typical-for-the-US 30-50 mile driving day, a 200-mile range car will still easily handle it even at 50% reduction in battery capacity.
One tip if you do go EV: get heated seats. The
retooling (Score:2)
At the moment they seem to be retooling their existing production lines and design EVs that can fit within whatever retooling is possible in their current line.
I assume that at some point, in order to be effective, they will design the cars from the ground up and build new production lines just for EVs, with no need to make some of the EV parts fit into a package that looks like and fit into the engine compartment.
Pinching pennies to lose dollars .... (Score:2)
I'm assuming this strike and the reasoning behind it also explains why GM has seemingly backed away from being one of the leaders in building electric vehicles?
I mean, they had the Chevy Volt for a while now - which seemed to be a decent electric hybrid, gaining in popularity after they did a revision to it and updated the styling ... Then they added the Spark EV. But they cancelled the Spark before most people even knew it existed, in favor of the Bolt EV. Now, they've cancelled the Volt too (as of Marc
125X, not 125 more (Score:2)
I believe the writer claiming 125 *more* parts meant 125 times as many parts. The many articles I've read on the subject put the number of moving parts in the drivetrain of an EV at roughly 100 times the number in the drivetrain of an ICE car.
My Chevy Bolt has a motor and a single-speed "transmission" (reduction gear)/transaxle. It does not have valves, camshafts, pistons, a crankshaft, injector pumps, connecting rods, timing belt/chain, alternator, etc. all feeding a complex multi-speed automatic transmiss
EVs taking over? (Score:2)
Not likely. I know geeks like to think that things change quickly (mostly because they are used to digital computers changing quickly - although that too is slowing). Unless there are a couple more magnitude changes in the storage capacity of batteries, people aren't all going to switch. EVs SHOULD have enough range for the vast majority of people, but it doesn't mean that people will actually think that.
Of course, you guys will all yell at me, but if you look at the numbers the number of EVs sold i
The writing is in the wall (Score:2)
Aside from prejudices, the obstacles for a complete takeover of electric cars are the following:
1. Price.
2. Infrastructure.
That's it. Price keeps coming down - within half a decade electric cars that outcompete ICE cars in this respect will have arrived. As for infrastructure, in many locations that's not a problem any longer.
Both items are very likely to improve dramatically in the next few years. There will still be lots of ICE cars in our roads for the next few decades, but for the ICE car industry as su
EV's LOL (Score:3)
Fake news beginning with the first sentence (Score:3)
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Alright, cool! Do you do free pickup and delivery to Canada?