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For years, iPhones (or their boxes) have said that they were "designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." But thanks to an escalating trade war between the US and China, that might not be true in the coming years. Reuters reports that two of Apple's biggest manufacturing contractors, Foxconn and Pegatron, are working to expand their facilities in Mexico with an eye toward eventually building iPhones there.
[...] This isn't Foxconn's only effort to diversify away from China. Last year, Foxconn announced plans to begin manufacturing iPhones in India, and the company is now manufacturing the iPhone SE there.
Sources told Reuters that Taiwan-based iPhone contractor Pegatron is also considering a shift to Mexico, but few details about its plans are known.
Previously:
(2019-12-14) Exclusive: Documents Show Foxconn Refuses to Renegotiate Wisconsin Deal(2019-09-12) Four-Year Probe Finds Foxconn's Apple 11 Factory 'Routinely' Flouts Chinese Labour Laws
(2019-02-01) Foxconn May Drop Plans to Build Flat Screens in Wisconsin
(2018-11-06) Foxconn May Import Workers for U.S. Plant
(2018-09-24) Who are the Largest Employers in the World?
(2018-03-27) Foxconn to Acquire Belkin International (Linksys)
(2017-08-19) Wisconsin Lawmakers Vote to Provide up to $3B in Subsidies to Foxconn.
(2017-08-01) Will Wisconsin Get Foxconned?
(2017-01-24) Foxconn Mulls New U.S. Factory
(2017-01-02) Foxconn Plans to Replace Nearly All Human Workers With Robots in Some Factories
(2016-03-30) Foxconn Acquires Sharp at a Lower Price Than Previously Agreed
(2016-02-25) Sharp Accepts $6.25 Billion Takeover Bid from Foxconn, but Foxconn is Wary of Debt
(2015-08-10) Foxconn to Invest $5 Billion in India
(2015-07-14) Foxconn to Hire 1 Million People in India by 2020
(2014-09-21) Why You Can't Manufacture Like Apple
(2014-07-08) Foxconn Confirms Apple will be First Customer for its 'Foxbot' Robot Assembly Line
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @03:33AM (1 child)
I was invited to visit a power steering plant in Mexico about 15 years ago, owned by one of the USA "big three" automakers. Before I got there, I expected to see a production line with a few engineers in charge of quality and keeping the machines running.
What I actually saw was a completely up to date engineering center with about 80 PC workstations running CAD, FEA and other specialized analysis software. They were designing the power steering racks in Mexico, for about 1/3 the labor cost of the same jobs in Detroit. I talked to one of the engineering managers and it was clear that he knew what he was doing (I had been involved in a power steering rack research product, so I had a reasonable idea of what was involved.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:10AM
The Chrysler/Mitsubishi 2.4L turbo motors I think it was were developed in Mexico for Mexican prodution vehicles (I forget if it was off the Mitsu or Chrysler blocks, they were using both in a variety of cars for a couple years, some even with different front ends due to the engine/transmission combos being reversed between the two lines of engines/transmissions.) They eventually turned out to have good enough emissions and performance that with American emission gear added they worked well for 3-4 years in American models as a interim solution before the newly designed Hyundai/Mitsu/Chrysler engines came out, right before the Daimler/Chrysler merged which saw them pull out and use Mercedes engines or Chrysler motors instead. The Hyundai Genesis RWD models all used Mitisubishi engines, either 6G75 based, or a Hyundai version of the 4B(11?) 4 cylinder turbo, like was equipped in the Lancer Evo X)
On the other hand, I've heard lots of stories of companies going down there either aiming for the lowest cost labor, or without researching the availability of existing production workers/engineering staff for their market and suffering accordingly. Mexican labor can be just as good as American labor for most things, but only if that market already exists there to produce experienced workers, or if you're willing to invest the American/European personnel necssary to train people unfamiliar with the processes or technologies involved. Like with the paint example given above (For the record, GM/Buick had a terrible problem with that in the 80s with the 'green' paints, that had bonding issues between the primer and undercoat leading to the whole paint surface peeling off and the metal rusting through the primer.)