Volvo Selects South Carolina as Location for First U.S. Plant, Breaks Ground this Fall

A former timber plantation in a sleepy southern town will be place back to operate constructing new Volvos. In the initial Swedish-Chinese-South Carolinian collaboration of its kind, Volvo is scheduled to break ground on a $ 500-million factory this fall.

Because late March, when Volvo announced it would construct an American plant with capacity for 25,000 cars a year—nearly double what it sold right here in 2014—the automaker turned down a proposal near Savannah, Georgia, and turned its focus to the Palmetto State, which agreed to offer you incentives worth up to $ 120 million. Volvo has not announced which models would roll down the line when construction finishes in 2018 or what percentage will be exported. (There’s also no word as to whether or not this deal will bring South Carolina its first IKEA store.)

Volvo plans to employ up to 2000 personnel, and you can bet your sweet tea that the UAW will not come knocking. Throughout Volkswagen’s union debates in neighboring Tennessee last winter, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley mentioned she wore high heels to stomp unions out of her state. “You’ve heard me say a lot of times I put on heels. It is not for a style statement,” she stated. “It’s simply because we’re kicking them every single day, and we’ll continue to kick them.” In the lengthy term, Volvo expects to employ 4000 individuals. The plant will be Volvo’s fifth following its 2 Swedish and 2 Chinese factories.

Volvo says it will use a large chunk of the 6800-acre Camp Hall Plantation, situated about 40 miles northwest of Charleston (exactly where one of 2 main ports is situated) and closer nonetheless to Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van plant. According to The Columbia State, Volvo filed an environmental permit for 575 acres with an additional 322 acres accessible for expansion.

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Offered Volvo’s languishing volume amongst an industry that has noticed nearly every brand bounce back from the recession, the South Carolina plant will probably export half, if not a lot more, of the vehicles it builds. A planned lineup expansion into compact crossovers and upscale S90s will assist fill the factory floor. But far more telling is what Geely, Volvo’s owner since 2010, may do with a large car-assembly plant sitting on inexpensive land and a state willing to do whatever it requires to boost employment. Could this be the very first step to American-made, Chinese-branded automobiles? If Volvo wanted to export vehicles cheaply, it could have constructed a plant in Mexico, a nation that is tariff-free to most European and Latin American countries. More than shiny XC90s, we’re betting Geely desires to win in America.

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Volvo Selects South Carolina as Location for First U.S. Plant, Breaks Ground this Fall

Hyundai Closer to Creating Santa Cruz Pickup, Taking into consideration Second Alabama Plant

Want a smidgen more proof that Hyundai will develop the Santa Cruz pickup concept? Study this 3-sentence write-up from Reuters, which quoted a firm executive in South Korea, and see if you can locate the “yes.”

We cannot, but soon after our longer interview with Hyundai USA’s vice president of product preparing, we’re not shocked that Hyundai’s home base noticed the “good response” soon after the pickup’s Detroit debut. The man quoted is Park Byung-cheol, an R&D director who also talked about “hurdles” to getting it to production.

Apart from trying to sell a small, unibody, Korean pickup in the Home of the Whopper, where full-size, body-on-frame, American pickups are virtually a religion, the biggest hurdle is Hyundai’s Alabama plant. At the moment, it is almost maxed out with about 400,000 Elantra and Sonata models per year, and since the Johnson-era chicken tax levies a 25-% tariff on all imported trucks and vans, it’s ’Bama or bust.

Reports in the Korean press, even so, recommend that Hyundai will develop a second Alabama plant for the Santa Fe—currently assembled at Kia’s Georgia factory alongside the Sorento and the Optima—and add the Tucson. The Santa Cruz could potentially sidle in alongside them. According to the Detroit Totally free Press, the new plant could assistance annual production of 300,000 autos by 2017. Practically nothing is confirmed.

With the Honda Ridgeline returning, there’s at least one manufacturer that thinks a smaller, unconventional pickup is viable in this market. Compared to the Ridgeline, Hyundai’s Santa Cruz is even smaller sized and much more unconventional. But who knows, perhaps it could succeed. It is not like anyone has ever attempted a diesel, front-wheel-drive pickup with a power-extendable bed prior to.

Hyundai Closer to Creating Santa Cruz Pickup, Taking into consideration Second Alabama Plant

Nissan celebrates as NP200 keeps Rosslyn plant humming

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• NP200 is crowned as South Africa’;s favourite half-ton bakkie


• 17 412 NP200 bakkies sold in 2014


• Market leadership follows glowing 2014 Kinsey Report and Ipsos Quality Award

Rosslyn, South Africa, 2 FEBRUARY 2015 – Nissan South Africa is celebrating the overwhelming success of its NP200 pickup after final national sales figures for 2014 reported that it had reached a full-year market share of 52.2% for the half ton pickup market.

The NP200′s market share dominance reached as high as 65.4% in November last year and is a fitting end to a successful year for the locally produced pickup. Last year, comprehensive 12 month market research by Ipsos noted that the NP200 had the best vehicle quality in its segment, based on feedback from both business and leisure NP200 customers.

Ipsos South Africa’;s quality accolade was followed late last year by a firm endorsement in the annual Kinsey Report, in which journalist and researcher Malcolm Kinsey calculated the cost of maintenance and repairs of different vehicles and vehicle segments.

In the 2014 Kinsey Report, the NP200 is singled out as the most affordable single cab pickup to own and maintain, beating its nearest rival, the Nissan NP300 Hardbody, in the bakkie-segment. The NP200 also beat all the entry-level vehicles in the passenger vehicle segment to be crowned the most affordable vehicle to maintain overall.

The NP200 replaced the well-loved Nissan 1400 after this locally adapted workhorse reached the end of its production life cycle in 2008. By that time, the 1400 had earned a place in South African culture and a parking bay in the global Nissan museum in Japan. Since taking over the reins, the modern NP200 has doubled its sales volume every year for the first 4 years before reaching a peak in 2014 with monthly sales of more than twice that achieved by the 1400.

“The NP200 has proven itself worthy of the Nissan pickup badge. It offers a wide range of engines, while the range of derivatives means that it comfortably straddles the workhorse and leisure markets. The class-leading payload of 800 kg adds to its workhorse capabilities. We look forward to strong sales in 2015 as the demand for our reliable and affordable sub-1 ton pickups grows,” says Konstantin von Vieregge, General Manager: Marketing and Planning.

Nissan celebrates as NP200 keeps Rosslyn plant humming

Tesla, Panasonic Sign Deal for Epic Gigafactory Battery Plant Slated to Open Before 2017

Panasonic has agreed to partner with Tesla on its Gigafactory battery-manufacturing facility, which will at some point assemble all battery packs for both the automaker’s lineup and its foray into electrical storage for residences and firms.

The Japanese electronics giant, which currently supplies the lithium-ion cells in the Model S, won’t commit to hauling its own gear to the U.S. just however, even so. Just as it does now at its factory in Fremont, California, Tesla will import Panasonic cells from Japan and assemble them into battery packs. This must take up half of the planned 10-million-square-foot Gigafactory facility, according to Tesla, with some further unnamed “key suppliers” taking up the other space. Tesla has currently committed about $ 2.3 billion to the estimated $ 5 billion price for the factory since the firm announced plans to construct it in March. So even though Panasonic is throwing down some yen, the Gigafactory likely demands a lot more funding just before Elon Musk’s organization starts construction.

In its second-quarter SEC filing, Tesla said it plans to pick a building web site inside “the subsequent handful of months” from amongst 5 possible locations—Reno, Nevada, being a top selection, along with web sites in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas—and plans to have the factory completed prior to the Model 3 debuts in 2016 as a 2017 model. That higher-volume automobile, which will arrive after the Model X crossover’s 2015 rollout, is amongst the principal causes that the Gigafactory will exist. Tesla wants to reduce battery fees if it hopes to be able to sell the Model 3 for its target starting cost of $ 35,000, and the Palo Alto company also hopes to grow to be a major supplier to other automakers or even to consumer-electronics firms such as Apple.

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We’re slightly bearish on the Gigafactory upending the entire battery enterprise so swiftly, particularly provided Tesla’s consistent economic losses (it lost $ 62 million in the second quarter). Nonetheless, in spite of earning a “junk” credit rating in Could, Tesla is upgrading its Fremont assembly line, is opening new retailers in China, is adding but much more totally free Supercharger stations, and says it is “on track” to provide the gullwinged Model X early next year. If everything goes to strategy, 6500 individuals will discover steady employment at the Gigafactory and Tesla will churn out 500,000 cars per year by 2020—and Tesla’s most zealous owners just may possibly form a religion.

Tesla, Panasonic Sign Deal for Epic Gigafactory Battery Plant Slated to Open Before 2017