Goodyear Expected to Announce New Factory

A new US $550-million tire factory will be announced tomorrow in Mexico City, Reuters reported this morning.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company said last May it was planning a new consumer tire plant for North America to serve replacement and original equipment markets in North and Latin America. Initial production capacity was to be six million passenger and light truck/SUV tires per year.

The company declined to comment on the report of tomorrow’s announcement, which came from two sources familiar with the plans, Reuters said.

The factory is expected to be built in the state of San Luis Potosí and begin operating in 2017. It would be the company’s first in North America in 25 years, since it opened a factory in Napanee, Canada, in 1990.

Headquartered in Akron, Ohio, Goodyear has facilities in more than a dozen countries.

Tomorrow’s announcement would be the third in just over one week. Toyota Motor Corp. and Ford Motor Company last week announced assembly plants worth $1 billion and $2.5 billion, respectively.

Source: Reuters (en)

Ford to Announce $2.5bn Investment

Mexico News Daily | Tuesday, April 14, 2015

It’s a week for big automotive announcements in Mexico should the “industry sources” and “insiders” have it right. v Today, Reuters reports that Ford Motor Co. is also set to announce two big investments of its own: a US $1.3-billion expansion of its plant in Chihuahua, and $1.2 billion for a transmission plant in Guanajuato.

The expansion of the Chihuahua engine plant, located in the city of the same name, will allow it to build two new diesel engines and likely create 4,000 jobs.

The announcement will be made Friday to celebrate the auto maker’s 90th anniversary in Mexico, and it, too, will be attended by the president, the report said.

Industry figures say Ford is the fourth-largest auto exporter in Mexico, producing 108,000 units that were shipped abroad, mostly to the U.S.

Its last investment here was $3 billion to update the Cuautitlan plant in 2008.

Mexico’s to be No. 1 Vehicle Exporter

General Motors Co. said Thursday it will invest $5 billion in Mexico over six years, dating from 2013 through 2018, and will add 5,600 new jobs in the region.

The Detroit based automaker said the investment includes $1.4 billion announced or implemented in the past two years and $3.6 billion will come over the next four years.

“These investments will fund plant improvements to modernize and expand our manufacturing facilities at our four major complexes in Mexico,” GM spokesman Bill Grotz said.

GM, in a news release, said the investments will help “GM produce new vehicles for the local and foreign market, which will help establish GM as Mexico’s No. 1 vehicle exporter.”

Auto manufacturers move to Mexico

Mexico has become a superpower in cars

Automotive News estimates that just-opened and newly announced plants in Mexico from 2014 will add more than 1.5 million units of vehicle capacity there through 2019, much of it aimed at U.S. consumers. That will give Mexico the factory muscle to turn out 4.5 million cars and trucks -- roughly a 50 percent increase over the 2,934,049 units built in Mexico in 2013.

The investment in Mexico likely will turn up the competitive heat on automakers who are not moving small vehicles into Mexico -- notably General Motors, which produces its subcompact Chevrolet Sonic in Orion Township, Mich., and its compact Chevrolet Cruze in Lordstown, Ohio.

There are many factors that makes Mexico so attractive to automotive manufacturers. There are the EPA laws, OSHA laws, EEOC laws, legal liability laws and municipal zoning laws that make the US less attractive. Mexico also has much lower electricity and natural gas costs that the manufacturing plants consume in enormous quantities. 

Wake up America and get your foot off the necks of manufacturers and you will see U.S. manufacturing flourish.