Free Republic

(Reuters) - General Motors Co confirmed on Friday it will invest $300 million in a suburban Detroit assembly plant, adding 400 jobs to build a new Chevrolet electric vehicle. The largest U.S. automaker has come under heavy criticism from President Donald Trump in recent days over its decision to end production at its Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant earlier this month. GM officials said the announcement was planned well before Trump's series of angry GM tweets that started on Saturday. Trump called GM CEO Mary Barra on Sunday to urge her to reverse the decision to end production at the Ohio...

ORION TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Less than a week after a series of critical tweets from the president over an Ohio plant closure, General Motors is announcing plans to add 400 jobs and build a new electric vehicle at a factory north of Detroit. The company says it will spend $300 million at its plant in Orion Township, Michigan, to manufacture a Chevrolet vehicle based on the battery-powered Bolt. GM wouldn’t say when the new workers will start or when the new vehicle will go on sale, nor would it say if the workers will be new hires or come...

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump stepped up his pressure on General Motors to reopen an Ohio manufacturing plant that recently closed and put 1,700 people out of work. Trump's arm-twisting came in a series of separate tweets on Saturday and Sunday . He capped his weekend rant against the GM with a tweetdisclosing that he had vented his frustrations during a conversation with the company's CEO, Mary Barra. "I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING," Trump wrote. "I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW...

The perception that only elite schools produce elite leaders needs to die. The No. 1 company in last year’s Fortune 500 was Walmart Inc., with $500 billion in revenue. That would make its chief executive, Douglas McMillon, a pretty important and powerful executive, don’t you think? Can you guess where he went to college? The University of Arkansas. He has an MBA, too. From the University of Tulsa. Second on the list was Exxon Mobil Corp. Its CEO, Darren Woods, went to Texas A&M. Third was Berkshire Hathaway Inc., run by the man many consider the greatest investor who ever...

General Motors plans to lay off 4,000 salaried works beginning Monday, CNN reported. This is part of the company's previously announced 15 percent workforce reduction that was announced back in November. Along with letting workers go, GM is also closing four manufacturing plants in the United States and another in Canada. The company made the decision as part of a strategic move to free up $6 billion annually. That money will then be used to invest in new technology, including electric and self-driving cars as well as a ride sharing service. By making these cuts, GM believes they can save...

Pretty much any subject, stupid humor is fine, general stupidity not so much, and please no snarking, that's directed at you snarky SOBs. Someone used to do a thread like this every year, but, alas, he got banned. The good news (for me, anyway) is I just noticed that a really big butthole (not the same FReeper) got banned for NeverTrumping back in 2016, and I hadn't missed the ******* at all. That got me thinking, because the predictions thread guy also got booted for NeverTrumpism, if memory serves (not sure, I think I'd already been kicked out for something...

Ford’s new Mustang GT Shelby 500 is a 700-horsepower monster Ford says is the quickest street-legal Mustang in history. The latest iteration of Ford’s Shelby GT variant of the iconic Mustang pony car inherits the name of racer and engineer Carroll Shelby, who worked with Ford to design the first GT500 in 1967 — a car that now is considered a legend among American muscle cars. The new version, which debuted at the Detroit auto show on Monday, goes from 0 to 60 miles per hour in the “mid-3 second” range, Ford said. It borrows technology from Ford’s GT super...

GM Sues Avanti Motors in SUV Dispute Fri Feb 14, 5:45 PM ET DETROIT - General Motors Corp. has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Avanti Motor Corp., saying Avanti's new Studebaker XUV too closely resembles GM's Hummer H2 sport utility vehicle. GM said in a statement Friday that the Studebaker XUV, which debuted Friday at the Chicago Auto Show, "knocks off and misappropriates the shape" of the Hummer H2. GM trademark attorney Charles Ellerbrock said "the Studebaker XUV is so similar to the H2 that the public will be confused by the knock off of the H2. "GM will...

Volkswagen and BMW increased their 2018 car sales in the United States while major American competitors General Motors (GM) and Ford both had declines in new vehicle sales, according to sales reports published on Thursday. Volkswagen sold over 350,000 cars in the US in 2018, a 4.2 percent increase over 2017. It was the company’s second year of sales increases after sales plummeted following the dieselgate scandal, where a US investigation uncovered massive fraud in its diesel emissions reporting. Volkswagen’s boost in sales figures were helped by popular SUVs Tiguan and Atlas. BMW saw an increase of 1.7 percent to...

FLINT, Michigan — Lear is planning a massive three-day hiring effort to fill 400 open jobs at its new Flint manufacturing facility: Resumes can be dropped off 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jan. 3-5 at the new Lear plant, 902 E. Hamilton Ave. in Flint. Pay starts at $13.85 for the positions, which are permanent, with a second- and third-shift premium of $0.30 per hour. Lear also offers annual pay increases as well as health benefits including low-cost medical, dental, and vision coverage after 90 days of employment. Employees also are eligible for 401(k) and paid vacation time after one...

A downturn in China's car market has wrong-footed some of the world's biggest automakers, saddling them with factories they no longer need and that are costly to retool, according to a report from the Dow Jones Newswires supplied to EFE on Tuesday. Ford Motor, Peugeot and Hyundai Motor especially mistimed recent expansions, opening new plants just as the seemingly unstoppable growth of China's auto market went into reverse.

Full Title: Could Elon Musk save the jobs of GM workers? Tesla founder 'would be interested' in taking over General Motors' idled factories Elon Musk is eyeing General Motors' once-occupied plants. The billionaire tech mogul said it's 'possible that [Tesla] would be open' to taking over automakers' old plants, such as the five factories closed by GM last month. The comments came during Musk's wide-ranging interview with CBS' '60 Minutes.' GM CEO Mary Barra announced in November that the car manufacturer would close five factories in North America and lay off some 14,700 workers as a result. Musk indicated that...

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Monday the Trump administration will end subsidies for electric cars and renewable energy sources, Reuters reports. Kudlow said he expected subsidies for electric cars would end by 2020 or 2021, according to the report. The remarks were made in response to a question about what the administration would do about General Motors' plans to layoff 15,000 people and shutter five plants across North America. The company's plans have sparked outrage in Washington from both parties. Trump last week floated cutting GM's subsidies for electric vehicles and raising auto tariffs to punish the...

Back in 2012, the Obama reelection team reminded us that they got Osama bin Laden an d saved GM.  It probably gave Obama Ohio at less than 200,000 votes out of 5 plus million cast.  It did not hurt in Michigan.  It certainly energized the unions to cast ballots for the man who "saved" their jobs. Yes, they got Osama bin Laden.  But they didn't really save GM or do the workers any favor on a long-term basis. Looking back, the GM bailout was a partisan band aid.  I like what Kevin D. Williamson wrote about this:      What did U.S....

General Motors Co on Monday pulled the plug on the Chevrolet Volt hybrid and the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant that builds it, both examples of a costly gamble that is not paying off. GM’s widely touted factory of the future, forced on a town desperate for jobs and hailed decades later by former resident Barack Obama, is set to wind down over the next few years, leaving beleaguered Hamtramck wondering what happened. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said at a news conference Monday that he told GM chief executive Mary Barra Monday that “we moved thousands of people out of that neighborhood...

When General Motors announced it was cutting up to 14,000 jobs and idling five automotive plants, it justified the massive cuts by citing long-term savings. The cuts would free up $6 billion in cash, for a net savings of $4.5 billion in cash by 2020. The move will "make General Motors more agile, resilient and profitable" while the economy's still revving, CEO Mary Barra told investors Monday. Wall Street seemed to believe her, with GM's stock rising nearly 5 percent and one analyst on the call congratulating her "on getting in front of the curve here." But GM hasn't exactly...

Faced with the bad news from GM — which is discontinuing several passenger-car lines, shuttering five North American factories, and laying off thousands of workers — President Donald Trump responded with his habitual bluster, telling GM they “better damn well open a new plant” in Ohio, and boasting that he was “very tough” on the automaker’s CEO. As is often the case, President Trump’s bluster is unhelpful. General Motors almost certainly is doing the right thing, as painful as that is going to be for the workers who lose their jobs and for the communities that had relied on —...

FULL TITLE: 'This is the THANKS we get!' Trump warns General Motors he'll cut ALL its government subsidies in retaliation for closing U.S. auto plants President Donald Trump threatened to punish General Motors following the company's decision to shutter Midwest manufacturing plants and lay off thousands of U.S. workers. A day after the news of the layoffs rattled the industry and raised a potential political problem for the president, the president followed up on an earlier threat that the automaker 'better damn well' open a new plant. He threatened to yank subsidies for electric cars – as GM seeks to...

Shame on Trump for ordering General Motors to “put something else in” Reuters just published this article about General Motors planning to close a plant in Ohio due to there being less demand for small cars.Trump responded by saying:“They better put something else in.”It’s not the job of the President to tell private companies what products to make or how many kinds of products to make.Shame on Trump for trying to give himself powers that are not authorized in the Constitution!

Just when it looked like employers were getting less fearful about what President Obama might do next to worsen the business climate, the National Labor Relations Board (now with its first Democratic majority in a decade, thanks to Obama's appointees) has announced that private employers will be required to display pro-unionizing posters in their businesses under a newly proposed federal rule. "The planned rule," reported the Associated Press, "would require businesses to post notices in employee break rooms or other prominent locations to explain workers' rights to bargain collectively, distribute union literature or engage in other union activities without reprisal."...