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Delay possible? (cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=183598)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2011_Chevrolet_Volt.jpgWayne Gerdes – CleanMPG (cleanmpg.com) – Jan. 28, 2009

2011 Chevrolet Volt still scheduled for a late fall 2010 release.

GM suspends construction contracts for all-new Flint, MI engine plant.

GM’s plans to build the 1.4-liter Family 0 engine for the Chevy Volt and Cruze in the City of Flint, MI have supposedly not changed. In December 2008, GM announced they would delay construction of a new plant. At that time GM made decisions necessary to conserve capital. GM continues to hold its timing, but yesterday it was apparently necessary to make decisions on related construction contracts so they would not incur any additional costs.

What to make of this is anyone’s guess.

All this means is that GM is going to have to import the first engines from a plant in the ROK:


http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE50R5BT20090128?sp=true

By David Bailey and Soyoung Kim
DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp has suspended work on a $370 million engine plant in Michigan, forcing it to import engines for the initial production of its all-electric Chevy Volt, a senior union official told Reuters on Wednesday.


...


"The Volt kickoff will be an engine from across the ocean and as soon as possible the engine will be built in Flint," Jordan said.
GM is already building a version of the Chevy Cruze at its South Korean subsidiary and could source the early run of engines for the Volt from a supplier there.....

No plant,no engine,no car.That's sad.

GM has invested so much of it's reputation and future on the Volt that any delay will look like trouble for GM.

Outsourcing for the engine is going to happen.

Outsourcing the engine might be a saving grace. It might buy them some time, and reduce their investment enough to get the volt to market before they fold. They can always come back and build their own later. Heck, maybe they can use the Chevette engine. It is about the right size ;-) Seriously, the plan might work.

There can't possibly be anyone here who didn't see this coming. The Volt wasn't a car that was ever going to be made. It's just a marketing ploy and a way for GM grub up some undeserved government money.

Guys, they are already making this engine down in Australia. Last I heard, that's where the engines will come from (and possibly supplemented by supply from Korea) until the plant in Flint is constructed. The only thing canceled was the on-hold contracting agreement -- which was causing them quite a bit of expense because of retaining the construction workforce. The plant will still be built, but the time frame has not been solidified and in the mean time that extra expense is now gone.

Do the plants in Aus and Korea have union contracts?

There can't possibly be anyone here who didn't see this coming. The Volt wasn't a car that was ever going to be made. It's just a marketing ploy and a way for GM grub up some undeserved government money.

This is the danger of all these bailouts and "stimulous plans", they are creating a culture of undeserved entitlements and the persuit of the unearned, meanwhile government power grows and grows!

Probably not. The union situation is a bit hard to understand. The union claims that their costs are a small part of the problem. But, the auto companies must be thinking it is a BIG problem, otherwise they wouldn't keep paying to build expensive plant outside U.S. unionized areas.

The overall cost of unionization is even more difficult to understand. When one considers the social cost of shutting U.S. production facilities the situation gets complex. Those fired U.S. workers are going to cost the country a great deal. What we gonna do - let them and their families starve, go without housing, go unclothed, go without medical care, perish in retirement - I don't think so.

Still, I do not defend union level automotive wages. Some way needs to be found to get wages in line. With the union allied democrates in power, that hardly seems likely.

They build outside the U.S. because they can pay people next to nothing, work them to death and then throw them away when they're done with them. And because a lot of less developed places don't have rules that protect workers or the environment. They don't have to properly dispose of waste, they don't have to control emmissions from the factories, etc.