Pickup trucks are vital to
profits at Ford Motor Company, hence its announcement of a $1.3 billion
investment in its Kentucky Truck Plant to support the redesigned 2017 Super
Duty truck range.
THE
2017 Super Duty trucks – F-250, F-350 and F-450 – will have engines that Ford
claims it has improved.
Although no power and torque figures
are yet available the engines will comprise the 6.2-litre V8 CNG-available and
V10 6.8-litre CNG-available units as well as the 6.7-litre V8 Power Stroke diesel
engine built in Chihuahua, Mexico.
Ford said retooling and expansion,
including a new body shop, would create 2,000 jobs at the plant now being
prepared to build aluminum-intensive Super Duty pickups. The plant currently
employs about 4,400 workers.
The Super Duty accounts for around one-third
of total F-series sales, which were up 1.5 per cent to 629, 951 vehicles this
year through to the end of October.
Ford has pledged the United Auto
Workers (UAW) that a quarter of the ‘new or secured’ jobs agreed in its newly-ratified
contract would be sited at the Louisville, Kentucky, plant being prepared to
build aluminum-intensive Super Duty pickups.
Ford says most of the 2,000 jobs will
be new hires, though some may be filled by employees moved from other plants,
according to sources.
Ford is keen to avoid mistakes of the
past claiming the changeover will be faster and less disruptive than for the
F-150, which involved several months of down time at two plants to convert
their body shops and make other upgrades.
Ford spent nearly $2 billion upgrading
its Kansas City Assembly and Dearborn Truck plants, along with related parts
and stamping plants. It was these that stymied production start-up.
But by building a completely new body
shop at the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, production of the current Super
Duty can continue until the company is ready to switch production to the 2017
model. Ford not have to manage inventories of the Super Duty quite as
carefully.
Sources suspect a touch of ‘smoke and
mirrors’ about Ford’s announcement as some investment is tied to a contract
signed in 2011 promising a $621 million for the Kentucky Truck Plant, while the
new contract earmarks an additional $600 million for the plant.
“Adding new jobs and more investment at
Kentucky Truck Plant not only secures a solid foundation for our UAW members,
but also strengthens the communities in which they live, work and play,” said UAW
vice president Jimmy Settles predictably in a statement.
Production of the 2017 Super Duty is
due to start in May ready for sales to kick off later in the year. Trucks will
be up to 350lb lighter than the current version yet have longer cabs and improved
towing and payload capacity.
It is expected the new body shop is
associated with a 288,715-square-foot expansion to the existing 6 million square
feet.
“The launch will be a normal,” chief
executive officer Mark Fields predicted reassuringly a month ago. “We’ll handle
it during the shutdown periods, during the vacations, and we’ll be up and
running.”
The rumour mill suggests new investment
is expected to bolster the plant for building aluminum-bodied Ford Expeditions
and Lincoln Navigators as soon as 2017 and to be built alongside Super Duty
F-250, F-350, F-450 and F-550 pickups and chassis cabs with their aluminium-intensive
bodies.
The UAW claims Ford is committed to
keeping Expedition and Navigator at the Kentucky Truck Plant using a “major
investment.”
Sources say Ford told the UAW it would
invest $700 million in the nearby Louisville Assembly Plant, which will soon
start building the refreshed Escape crossover.
2 comments:
Not sure how it could be measured, but it would be interesting to know the extent to which potential buyers of heavier-duty Ford pick-ups in North America have been influenced in their engine choice - ie gasoline or diesel - by the Volkswagen scandal.
American car buyers have always been, and still are, instinctively anti-diesel. And that (many would say perverted) view permeates the lighter pick-up market, though vehicles like the Ford F450 and F550 tend to be bought by more hard-headed tradespeople with an eye to running costs and durability, where diesel power is an incontrovertibly more logical choice.
A further reason for those US and Canadian pick-up customers to shun diesels today is the downswing in fuel prices, making miles-per-gallon less of a concern than it was say two years ago.
A quite different repercussion of the VW debacle is likely to be, for North American manufacturers of light-duty diesel vehicles, including pick-ups, a heightened sensitivity to EPA emission limit compliance. Where certification has been achieved by only a paper-thin margin, there could be some surreptitious tweaking
of engine management algorithms by the engine makers to widen the 'safety' margin needed to allow for in-service deterioration. Such 'rechipping', to reduce NOx anyway, would harm fuel economy and/or performance - another small factor tending to push buyers away from diesel towards gasoline power.
The double torque from the diesel is crucial when it comes to towing
405 @ 4500 rpm (6.2L V8 gas engine)
860 @ 1600 rpm (6.7L Power Stroke™ Turbo Diesel)
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