GM rolled the dice and went green.
Via Chicago Tribune:
Wile GM is cutting 14,000 jobs and idling five factories amid sliding sedan sales, Chicago-area auto plants are hitting on all cylinders after shifting to SUV production.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Belvidere Assembly Plant, near Rockford, switched over to the Jeep Cherokee last year. Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant is phasing out the Taurus sedan in the spring to build the new Lincoln Aviator SUV alongside the Ford Explorers that have rolled off the line there since 2010.
Nearly 10,000 employees are working at the two plants, both of which operate on multiple shifts.
Meanwhile, startup manufacturer Rivian Automotive is gearing up to build electric trucks and SUVs at a former Mitsubishi plant in the central Illinois city of Normal beginning in 2020.
All three Illinois plants are positioned to take advantage of current consumer trends: SUVs surpassed cars in 2016 and now account for nearly half of all vehicle sales, according to IHS Markit automotive industry research. But a future that could include self-driving cars built by robots portends more challenges down the road.
Electric and self-driving vehicles may make the current lineup of SUVs as cutting edge as a 1970s-era conversion van. For thousands of employees at Chicago-area auto plants, a greater concern may be who will build the car of the future.
Some experts are not sure that current autoworkers will have the skills needed in the future assembly process.
“Being really good at something that is not really useful to do isn’t a really good ticket to the future,” said Michael Hicks, an economics professor and manufacturing expert at Ball State University. “The unemployment lines are full of people really good at skills that can be done very cheaply elsewhere or are automatable.”