Elm Analytics - Automotive Supply Chain Risk Digest #229 - June 25 - July 1, 2021
CHANGE IN MANAGEMENT
Following Rory Gamble's announcement to retire early, UAW leaders have selected Secretary-Treasurer Ray Curry as the labor union's new President. Curry took his recent post on July 1.
DISASTER
A fire briefly halted production at Faurecia's plant in Saline, Michigan, early this week. The first only caused minor damage to the roof, and no workers were injured.
Heavy rains submerged the shipping yard at Stellantis' Jefferson North Assembly Plant, Monday. The extent of the damage to hundreds of new Jeep and Dodge SUVs was unknown. The same storm halted production at Ford's Dearborn and Michigan Assembly plants.
INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS
Bloomberg has put together a concise overview of the auto industry's Q2 sales.
GM confirmed plans to convert five North American assembly plants from ICE to EV. These will include Orion Township, Michigan, new plants in Detroit, and Spring Hill, Tennessee; Ontario, Canada; and Mexico.
Volvo is updating its Ridgeville, South Carolina assembly plant to produce only EVs.
The NHTSA this week launched a new searchable online database of automotive recall data that goes back over 50 years.
MERGERS, VENTURES, ACQUISITIONS
Renault announced a partnership with Envision AESC to build a gigafactory in Douai, France. It also signed an agreement with Verkor to develop new EV battery technology and production methods.
Steelmakers POSCO and HBIS are teaming up for a $600M JV to produce automotive steel sheets. The plant will be capable of producing 900k tons of steel sheets per year.
HELLA and Farasis Energy have partnered to develop EV battery management systems.
OPENING
Nissan has announced plans for a $1.4B gigafactory for EV batteries in Sunderland, England, with a workforce of 6.2k.
Vitesco officially opened its EV drivetrain plant in Debrecen, Hungary. The plant has been operating since February.
PRODUCTION DECREASE
UK Car output for May was more than ten times as high as of May 2020, but only 50% of May 2019, due to the chip shortage.
PRODUCTION INCREASE
SK Innovation aims to ramp up its annual battery production capacity to 200 GWh in 2025. The company currently produces 40 GWh and had previously announced a goal of 125 GWh by 2025.
RAW MATERIALS
Indian-based powder metallurgy research center ARCI has developed new catalysts for metal-air batteries that could decrease cost and increase efficiency. The new materials are non-precious metal-based.
REGULATION
NYT: Here's How Biden Aims to Increase Electric Car Sales
Canada will phase out sales of new ICE vehicles in 2035, up from 2040.
RISK ANALYTICS
A new report from machine health management firm Senseye says that the world's largest manufacturers lose nearly $1T a year to machine failures. These large plants lose 27 hours/month due to machine failures, on average, at the cost of $532k for each hour of downtime.
SHUTDOWN
Ford is cutting production and scheduling downtime at eight North American factories due to the ongoing chip shortage.
SUPPLY CHAIN
Australia has teamed up with the US and Canada to launch an interactive map of rare earth deposits and other critical minerals across the globe. It is the world's largest of its kind.