Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Getting back to vehicle construction, are auto makers walking a fine line with "patroitism" and unions here as well. For example, the Fusion. I know Ford has many fine plants in the US. So why doesn't it build the Fusion here? If it's cost-savings, why don't they build ALL of their vehicles in Mexico, like the Edge, F-150, etc? I imagine then that they'd get into disputes with labor unions (and fans of the brand in general) for off-sourcing all of its vehicle manufacturing.
Maybe it's just vehicle-specific. I think Ford builds most of its vehicles in the U.S. or in Canada...so why is the Fusion the only one built in Mexico? Same with Cadillac...I didn't know they built ANYTHING in Mexico until I read about the SRX in the other thread.
And again, this isn't about one brand or one vehicle in particlar. I'm more curious about the practice in general. And thank you all so far for the intelligent discussion.
Ford has been producing cars in foreign markets since 1905. They operate plants all over the globe and hopefully always will. I think what the big change has been over the last thirty or so years is, that it used to be a consumption question. IE, you produced cars where the raw materials were available and the product would be consumed. Today, as you point out, the economic questions involved have become the determining factor. And yes, it is a balancing act. It is in the companies best interest to maintain a strong workforce in the US and Canada, but the flip side of that coin is that Ford historically has also sold a lot of cars in South America and Europe...so they have always had a strong manufacturing base there as well.
Moving forward, I think that the best way to view the world markets and the competition between them as more regional based. The NA hemisphere will be in competition for market share vs the SE Asian and Chinese producers when they get onboard. From that perspective, I would rather see a small share of our jobs go to Mexico, before they go to China. But then again, as the Chinese market expands for buyers of cars, and it is growing exponentially. Then it will be smart for GM and Ford to invest there heavily, which they are. Somebody is going to be selling them cars, might as well be us. The big question is, will the production in China remain "for Chinese consumption"...like in the past, from the very beginning, build em where you sell em makes sense.
But if they lay off all the workers here and start producing in China for export to the US/Canada, that would be a huge problem in my book. Dont see that happening though.
For the next few years at least, the auto job outlook will be fairly good. After the huge layoffs of the last few years, it has to be, it couldn't get any worse. They are going to need people going forward, the last ten months has seen at least ten thousand either brought back or new hire for example.
