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A multinational automaker prepared to lay off more than 2,000 American workers in August after benefiting handsomely from the Biden administration's subsidies for electric-vehicle production:
Stellantis, the parent company to famous brands like Ram and Jeep, has been awarded hundreds of millions in grants from the federal government to promote its EV manufacturing. But the Biden administration's largesse has not prevented the company from laying off American workers.
In July, the Department of Energy awarded Stellantis subsidiary Chrysler a $334.8 million grant to convert a shuttered Illinois plant into a facility for building EVs and another $250 million grant to make a ...(aaaand, paywall)
The AP ran a story a few weeks ago foreshadowing this action:
The statement comes as the company faces increased capital spending to make the transition from gasoline vehicles to electric autos. It also has reported declining U.S. sales in the first quarter, and it has higher costs due to a new contract agreement reached last year with the United Auto Workers union. Stellantis has about 43,000 factory workers.
[...] Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has said his company has to work on cutting costs globally in order to keep electric vehicles affordable for the middle class. Electric vehicles, he has said, cost about 40% more than those powered by gasoline. Without cost reductions, EVs will be too expensive for the middle class, shrinking the market and driving costs up more, Tavares has said.
I've been working on cars for most of my life and my observation is Chrysler/Ram are the worst vehicles on the road. I also own two Jeeps that are 50+ years old, however Chrysler has ruined the Jeep name by what I assume is cutting corners to save money because they're poorly designed and flimsy. Interesting the powers that be at Stellantis don't seem to be concerned about these issues.
Previously: Chrysler to Go All-Electric by 2028, Starting with the Airflow in 2025
Related:
• General Motors Lays Off Hundreds Of US Workers
• Tesla Lays Off 'More Than 10%' of its Global Workforce
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday September 11 2024, @02:54PM
The McKinsey link I gave says that the 40% is the battery, and gives the saving from removing the Internal Combustion Engine components as being relatively minor in comparison. This is somewhat credible, because automakers have had many decades to improve the manufacturing efficiency of ICE motors, but are still learning on battery capacity.
Batteries are unlikely to ever match the energy density of petroleum products, which have the advantage of external oxidiser (oxygen from the air) and throwing away the waste products. If ICE vehicles had to carry tanks of oxygen and capture the carbon dioxide, things would look rather different. That said, new battery technology could improve things: solid-state batteries have a lot of advantages in the lab, and are becoming available in vehicles.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/11/toyota-solid-state-ev-battery-plans-750-mi-range/ [electrek.co]
https://electrek.co/2024/09/10/mercedes-getting-new-ultra-efficient-all-solid-state-ev-batteries/ [electrek.co]
Automakers don't want to make batteries cheap, and cheap and easy to replace, because that would cannibalize future sales.