Photo: Ford Motor Company
Much of the continental United States has been covered in a huge blanket of snow these past few days and the winter weather is starting to paralyze economic activities. Many carmakers, including Ford, General Motors, or Toyota, have reported major disruptions in daily activity for their North American operations.
According to several reports coming from the Detroit Free Press, the Blue Oval company has been closing down some of its assembly facilities. For example, four plants have been idled, while another four had to cut shifts. Meanwhile, weather conditions remain unstable and sometimes plans change with little to no notice at all.
As far as we can tell, Ford’s most severely impacted models are the Mustang sports car (Flat Rock), 2021 F-150 and Transit vans (Kansas City Assembly Plant), some of the big F-Series (Ohio Assembly Plant, making the F-650, F-750, F-350/450/550 Super Duty Chassis Cab, among others), as well as the recently launched Bronco Sport (Hermosillo Assembly Plant in Mexico).
Due to the severe weather conditions, General Motors reportedly also had no choice but to halt production at four of its plants. Those include the highly profitable pickup facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it builds hot commodities such as the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado siblings.
Also affected are places like Bowling Green Assembly in Kentucky as the C8 Corvette seems unable to escape production plagues even after it switched to the 2021 model year, as well as the Wentzville Assembly in Missouri, where GM makes another popular duo – the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickups.
Other automakers such as Toyota have also reported partial or total plant shutdowns (in San Antonio where it makes the Tundra and Tacoma trucks, among others), while Stellantis North America (formerly Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) seems to be among the least hit by the changing weather conditions.
All these disruptions might have a serious impact on highly profitable sales of popular models later on, while the U.S. automotive market isn’t exactly in a rosy situation, to begin with. For example, Ford had to close down the F-150 plant for a full week because of natural gas constraints, while GM’s Corvette has been hit by numerous production issues while demand is very high.
As far as we can tell, Ford’s most severely impacted models are the Mustang sports car (Flat Rock), 2021 F-150 and Transit vans (Kansas City Assembly Plant), some of the big F-Series (Ohio Assembly Plant, making the F-650, F-750, F-350/450/550 Super Duty Chassis Cab, among others), as well as the recently launched Bronco Sport (Hermosillo Assembly Plant in Mexico).
Due to the severe weather conditions, General Motors reportedly also had no choice but to halt production at four of its plants. Those include the highly profitable pickup facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it builds hot commodities such as the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado siblings.
Also affected are places like Bowling Green Assembly in Kentucky as the C8 Corvette seems unable to escape production plagues even after it switched to the 2021 model year, as well as the Wentzville Assembly in Missouri, where GM makes another popular duo – the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickups.
Other automakers such as Toyota have also reported partial or total plant shutdowns (in San Antonio where it makes the Tundra and Tacoma trucks, among others), while Stellantis North America (formerly Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) seems to be among the least hit by the changing weather conditions.
All these disruptions might have a serious impact on highly profitable sales of popular models later on, while the U.S. automotive market isn’t exactly in a rosy situation, to begin with. For example, Ford had to close down the F-150 plant for a full week because of natural gas constraints, while GM’s Corvette has been hit by numerous production issues while demand is very high.
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