CHANGE IN MANAGEMENT

Stellantis has named former Amazon exec Ned Curic as its new Chief Technoloy Officer. Curic takes the post on August 30.

HUMAN CAPITAL

A worker at AK Steel's plant in Dearborn, Michigan died last week after falling from an elevated catwalk.

GM has laid off 1,086 workers at its plant near Pune, India due to their non-acceptance of a voluntary separation package. The layoff has triggered a legal battle between GM and the employee union.

LITIGATION

Volkswagen shareholders this week approved a $339M settlement of claims against four former executives for their role in the diesel crisis. The deals included one with long-time CEO Martin Winterkorn.

MERGERS, VENTURES, ACQUISITIONS

Suzuki Motor and Daihatsu are joining a commercial EV coalition led by Toyota. The two automakers will each acquire a 10% stake on par with Isuzu and Hino, while Toyota will hold a 60% stake.

Daimler is planning to invest over $47B between 2022 and 2030 towards three new EV platforms and building eight battery cell plants. They are planning for an all-electric car market by 2030.

OPENING

Chinese copper producer Jiangxi Copper is investing $1.76B into a plant that aims to produce 100,000 tonnes of copper foil for EV batteries per year. The first phase of production is due to start up by the end of 2023, with full production being reached by the end of 2024.

Chinese EV battery maker Gotion High-Tech Co., Ltd. is planning to build a new plant in Hefei, China. The over 3Msf plant will have an annual production capacity of 20GWh with the first phase of 10GWh to be completed within 18 months.

PRODUCTION DECREASE

Stellantis is temporarily halting a shift at its Vauxhall van factory in Luton, England due to a large number of workers isolating to halt the spread of COVID-19.

BMW said this week that nearly all of its German plants have been affected by the chip shortage and is preventing them from completing around 10k cars. The automaker also said that the shortage has already caused their vehicle production to decrease by 30k so far this year.

Volkswagen board member Murat Aksel said this week that the automaker "could not produce a high six-digit number of vehicles in the first half of the year" due to the ongoing chip shortage.

RECALLS

Ford is recalling over 700k Explorers over a potential fracture in the rear suspension that could increase the risk of a crash.

RISK ANALYTICS

You've heard of the Pandemic, now learn about the 'Pingdemic'. How England's COVID-19 contact tracing app is causing disruption in schools, businesses, and the healthcare system.

SHUTDOWN

GM has idled four of its plants in North America through July 26 due to the ongoing chip shortage. The idled plants are the assembly plants in San Luis Potosi and Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, and Lansing, Michigan and Spring Hill, Tennessee.

SUPPLY CHAIN

China is releasing another 170k tonnes of metals from its state reserves to sell at an auction on July 29. The reserves inclue 30k tonnes of copper, 90k tonnes of aluminum and 50k tonnes of zinc.

Supply Chain Management Review: What Seems Impossible, Is Merely Difficult