#Production

Following a rocky first quarter of 2019, Tesla’s decidedly lackluster production and delivery report sent the automaker’s stock tumbling in pre-market trading.

Not only were analyst estimates missed, in some cases by a mile, production actually fell at Tesla’s Fremont, California assembly plant, sparking concern that demand is drying up for the company’s EV offerings. A dip back into the red — something CEO Elon Musk warned of, not long after predicting the opposite — seems unavoidable.

No one knows what the future of General Motors’ Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant holds, or if it even has a future after Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac CT6 production dries up in January 2020. In an alternate future, however, the plant would have swapped out the sign out front, replacing the GM logo with a Fiat Chrysler one.

According to sources with insider knowledge, the two automakers met to discuss just such an ownership change.

Ford’s troubled Russian joint venture isn’t doing nearly as hot as the Blue Oval automaker would like, so it’s severely paring back its presence in the country.

The memorandum of understanding signed Wednesday kicks off a broad restructuring of the automaker’s business in Russia, with two vehicle assembly plants and an engine plant now slated to close. Ford passenger car assembly will soon be a thing of the past in the Motherland as Ford’s partner, Sollers PJSC, takes a majority stake in the venture.

The Blue Oval brand stands to seriously pare back its Russian presence, a new report claims, with two of the automaker’s three assembly plants rumored to close. Ford entered into a joint venture in the country in 2011, partnering with Russia’s Sollers. The two recently reached a new agreement, Sollers claims, but details remain scarce.

One person with knowledge of the pact claims Ford will cut its passenger car operations, leaving only its commercial vehicle business. More market share for the resurgent Lada, it seems.

More voices are piping up, alerting minivan-loving North Americans to a future offering from Fiat Chrysler. With the segment shrinking in the face of overwhelming competition from spacious, pleasant-riding crossovers, the possibility of an all-wheel drive Chrysler Pacifica is big news, and one Canadian union official claims it’s on the way.

In the minivan market, it looks like Toyota’s Sienna won’t stand alone as the only AWD offering for long.

The home of the Ford Mustang will eventually become home to vehicles built atop the automaker’s next-generation electric architecture, the company announced Wednesday. Ford’s plan comes with $900 million in previously announced funding, the vast majority of which is earmarked for the expansion of Michigan’s Flat Rock assembly plant. The rest of the cash goes towards preparations for the next-generation Mustang, which keeps Flat Rock as its home.

Contrary to previous claims, autonomous vehicles will not be among Flat Rock’s future inhabitants, and the same goes for Ford’s upcoming “Mustang inspired” EV crossover.

Forget Teslas and Black Label Lincolns and the upper strata of truckdom — the most expensive vehicle produced in North America will soon be a German offering with an MSRP about 100 grand higher than its domestic neighbors.

An American production site for this vehicle is appropriate, however, as it’s an SUV; the first offered by the Mercedes-Maybach sub-brand.

Everyone’s favorite Danish designer has put his plans for an electric performance sedan on hold, turning his attention instead to an affordable, mass-market electric SUV.

Half a century ago, the foremost automotive trend was ordinary family cars stuffed to the gills with huge, fuel-sucking V8s. Today, if you’re not planning a bland, long-range EV with a liftgate and a somewhat sensible price, you’re nobody. Henrik Fisker doesn’t want to be a nobody.

Chevrolet was expected to debut its new, mid-engine C8 Corvette sometime over the winter, but a series of delays meant the only glimpses we’ve had of the thing are of the spy shot variety. And boy, are there a lot of those. That thing gets around more than Wendy in Breaking Bad.

While a report late last year pointed to electrical issues as the reason for the delay, a new report points not only to this, but a structural problem, too.

Western Europe doesn’t like Infiniti very much, so the Japanese premium brand has decided to hit the road. The brand’s residency in the competitive region only lasted a decade, and middling consumer interest, coupled with increasingly stringent emissions regulations, is all the reason it needs to take a hike.

In doing so, Nissan’s premium division plans to cease global production of the QX30 at its Sunderland, England assembly plant. The subcompact crossover, born of a rocky Mercedes-Benz partnership, and its overseas-only Q30 hatch sibling go belly-up in July of this year.

In its big February plant and product announcement, Fiat Chrysler said its Mack Avenue engine facility will give way to SUV production, describing the first vehicle to emerge from the repurposed plant as a “three-row, full-size Jeep SUV.” Given that the next-generation Grand Cherokee will also call the plant home, and that the two models will almost certainly share underpinnings, one would assume the three-row Jeep would carry a modified GC nameplate. Think Hyundai Santa Fe XL.

That’s been the assumption, anyway. However, the automaker’s CEO suggests a wholly new nameplate is in the works.

The German automaker that cranks out Buick Regals and, until this summer, Buick Cascadas for American consumers is suddenly flying high, distancing itself from its money pit days under former parent General Motors.

After trying and failing to return the Opel (and sister brand Vauxhall) to profitability, GM offloaded the automaker to the French in August, 2017. In cutting its losses, Opel’s former parent put the brand’s future in the hands of PSA’s shrewd CEO, Carlos Tavares, who then enacted the same cost-cutting turnaround plan he performed on his own company. The financial about-face was a quick one.

Unlike another German automaker, BMW isn’t jumping into “electromobility” (gag) with both feet. There’s an element of restraint in the automaker’s electrification plans, unlike Volkswagen’s bid to put 1 billion EVs on the moon by next week. Thanks to this cautious blend of profit-mindedness and environmental consideration, we now have high-margin vehicles positioned above the X7 SUV. (Bimmer needs the dough for green things.)

But electric BMW vehicles are already here, and more are on the way. Normal-looking ones, too, like the iX3 crossover — a battery-electric version of the popular X3, due to start rolling out of China next year. At least, Bimmer was due to begin exporting it, until the automaker took the needle off the record.

Tesla, the upstart electric automaker who reminds your author of that person you knew in high school who existed in a perpetual cloud of drama, wants Tesla owners to juice up their cars in a hurry. Recharging times are one factor behind the slow adoption of EVs in North America (cost, range, and recharging availability being the others), so the automaker plans to ensure their time at the Supercharger station doesn’t go overlong.

Expect 75 miles in 5 minutes, Tesla claims.

Much like in the pre-1985 era and a short spell from 2006-2007, every last one of you woke up this morning in a world without the Ford Taurus. The historic nameplate met its end on Friday at Ford’s Chicago assembly plant, with the automaker choosing to honor the model’s service through a media release.

At the same time, workers at General Motors’ Lordstown Assembly marked a much more solemn occasion. The last Chevrolet Cruze made its way through the plant’s body shop Friday afternoon, and with its completion comes the idling of a plant opened in 1966.