UAW Contract: What Fords Go Where?

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

UAW-affiliated Ford workers will vote by week’s end to ratify their union’s tentative four-year agreement with Ford Motor Company, or choose to kick it back in their faces and ask for something better. The General Motors contract, recently ratified, was a fairly close thing.

While bonuses, pay, and healthcare costs might be top of mind for most Ford employees, product is what concerns us here. Thankfully, leaked copies of the tentative agreement have emerged, providing a look at what vehicles we can expect Ford to build, and where.

For Michigan’s Flat Rock Assembly, it seems the near future won’t be as exciting as initially thought.

Bloomberg first broke the story that Ford, which has already changed its Flat Rock plans in the recent past, won’t have a pair of electric crossovers ready to join the Mustang and departing Lincoln Continental at the Michigan plant. Instead, sources said, Ford’s Ohio Assembly Plant will gain “new product” in 2023, greased with $900 million in plant upgrade cash.

These claims were quickly proven after the document came to light.

While Flat Rock will remain viable, building the next-generation Mustang ($250 million goes towards that effort), it seems the Continental is good and dead in the near future. Hardly a shock. The Mustang build includes “derivatives,” while the contract also guarantees that Flat Rock will remain open for the duration of the four-year term.

Originally, Ford tapped Flat Rock for production of the “Mustang-inspired” electric crossover, but soon punted assembly to Mexico. Earlier this year, news arose that the automaker planned a pair of Ford and Lincoln midsize EV crossovers for the plant come 2023. Now, Ohio seems to be the chosen home for those products. The plant will continue building E-Series cutaway and chassis models, as well as medium-duty trucks and Super Duty chassis cabs.

The contract states that Ford will continue “to explore future opportunities” for Flat Rock.

Elsewhere in the automaker’s assembly realm, Dearborn will be home to the electric F-150, joining the stock truck and its upcoming hybrid variant. A new Raptor will also make its appearance. That effort gets $700 million, according to details published by The Detroit News. Kansas City Assembly, in addition to the new F-150, will see production of a Transit EV commercial van.

In powertrain news, Dearborn Engine will gain a new mill during the contract term.

[Image: Ford]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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 6 comments
  • Lichtronamo Lichtronamo on Nov 05, 2019

    It is almost shocking what Ford has become - a hollowed out maker of pickups. And maybe a few other CUVs and a sports car. More shocking perhaps when you read that with the PSA-FCA merger the 4 largest car companies are VW, Toyota, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, and PSA-FCA. This suggest the future of Ford as an independent company is at risk.

    • See 4 previous
    • John John on Nov 05, 2019

      Only in the USA, OVERSEAS, Ford still makes and sells cars.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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