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Hamtramck possibly resuming Volt production early

7K views 20 replies 14 participants last post by  mustardman 
#1 ·
I have heard Hamtramck will be restarting a week earlier than planned. Lets see if this holds true. If so, this is awesome news! One more nail in the naysayers coffin!
 
#3 ·
They recently proved they could paid (not sure if finish) 1000+ Volts a week (per ZNS - Ziv's Numbering System).

Over a 40-week year, that is still 40,000 Volts + Amperas. Quite good for this "EV thing that won't pan out, Obama car, junk American car" and all the other craziness you hear on the public forums and message areas after an EV story hits. Which is quite a few lately - Motley Fool keeps publishing strange stories - one day positive about EV, one day negative.

Here's hoping for a 2000 US-delivery March. And at least 150-200 in Canada.
 
#5 ·
I'm certain this will happen, I predict it will be at most 3 weeks down time instead of 5 weeks with this months inventory barley increasing, sale will show to be near 3K this month, no doubt about it, leaving them with with barley one month supply in inventory ... I've been tracking daily and we are not even up 300 cars even though the factory has produced over 6000 Volts in the last 6 weeks, they are selling at near the production rate of over 1000 week .. good news for the Volt faithful :)
 
#8 · (Edited)
Just curious ... where did you hear this?
 
#9 ·
A person I know who works for corporate. I'm pretty confident this is legit otherwise I wouldn't bother posting.
 
#11 ·
I have no doubts today its one week, but the people whom make this call are watching the sales data as well, one more week of the strong sales will pull that in yet another week and every thing is clearly pointing to an out right explosion ( pun intended ) of sales. The tipping point has happened, thanks to gas prices and the Volts catch on fire stuff behind us.
 
#10 ·
The lead story on this morning's TV news was...

Gas prices surge above $4 mark around Capital Region

You might do a double take when you drive past the gas stations on your way to work this morning.
A number of stations have posted big increases in prices.
The cost of a gallon has surged past the $4 barrier, to $4.10 and beyond.
On average, we're now paying $3.97 a gallon.
Locally, according to the CBS6 Gas Gauge, you can spend as much as $4.15 a gallon for regular. If you use premium, you could be looking at prices closer to $4.40.
 
#12 ·
Wouldn't surprise me too much. I would even wonder if they timed the production shut down specifically to allow the March sales numbers to justify an early start. With rising gas prices and the HOV Volt deliveries, even an idiot could predict March as a potentially great month. As others have noted, there's a summer production halt coming up any way. A 5 week halt right now was probably overkill.
 
#13 ·
While I would like Volt production to resume ASAP, I don't know if its even possible. Maybe some GM employees who know the workers contracts and other logistics could add some facts here.

Think about it. If your company had a planned shut down for say 4 weeks then in week 2 decided to reduce the shut down and resume operations a week early. Some employees would have left town to visit friends or family or God forbid have a vacation. Some workers may even be out of touch with most communications. There may be other complications with others who have taken another job for the time period. ...And on and on... I'm not sure if MI state unemployment would have kicked in for the short duration since there are usually unpaid waiting periods for the benefit.

My point is that its much more complicated than we are giving it credit. If it were 5 employees from the local deli store trying to reopen early then I would say yes a definite possibility of reopening early. This is too big for that type of flexibility and indecision. As much as I want them to resume production early, I do not think its even a remote possibility. : (

GM employees please chime in here.

Thanks.
Dave
 
#21 ·
I was thinking the same thing. Lots of people would have made plans to be out of town, plane tickets, reservations etc. There are probably some labour laws involved too. Then there are all the suppliers involved. But they could probably shoot for 1 shift on a voluntary basis. I don't know the answer either.
 
#14 ·
Islander, while you make a valid point, how do we know they didn't just tell the plant workers "we're shutting down for five weeks... but don't plan on any vacations in the last week or two, should we need to restart early" or something to that effect?
 
#16 ·
The WARN Act does not require advance notice of a recall. However, most if not all labor agreements and corporate policies require a time line of advance notices that typically require weeks (if not longer) notice of employee recall to work. I do not know MI state laws that may be related to this.

If they did some wink wink layoff with a shorter duration in mind it would become public in about 5 seconds. Multi billion dollar companies just can not operate that way. Additionally, GM would expose themselves to fines or other sanctions for deliberately misleading their written reporting requirements.

I know... we all want it to be short or not at all. But it was killing me to see so much of a waste of time here on the subject of an early re-start of Volt production.

I am not associated with GM or any of their representatives so there is always that remote possibility that they have some unusual work around this. I really would be totally amazed if there was one.

Are there any GM line workers here that might know for sure??

Thanks.
Dave
 
#17 ·
I don't think anyone is suggesting when the initial decision for the 5 week shutdown was made, they intentional planned an early recall of workers. But they made the call on Jan/Feb numbers, right before the effects of gas price increasing, bad press were to run there course.

What this really shows is the folly of trying to manage production for a new class of vehicle, where you have no historical data to rely on. March and April are typically the strongest sales months for cars in general, which leads one to question why they didn't just suck it up for one more month, but hey, that's GM, if they can screw it up, they will, when it comes to sales and marketing

The Volt is succeeding in spite of GM, not because of it, anyone that has been in the process of creating and selling products knows well a good product will sell itself. Yes, The Volt needed higher gas prices, and guess what now they are here and to stay for some time, the Volt will meet its initial projected sales.

It will be a VERY pleasurable spring watching all the talking heads squirm as the Volt succeeds .. I will personally enjoy every moment of it :)
 
#18 ·
It will be a VERY pleasurable spring watching all the talking heads squirm as the Volt succeeds .. I will personally enjoy every moment of it :)
They'll just act like nothing happened and find something else to blather on about.
 
#19 ·
I'm guessing that GM will have converted the plant over for a 2nd shift and prepared for another model build (Impala?) earlier than they thought, thus no need for the full 5 weeks that was estimated. Wait and see?
 
#20 ·
I would love to see GM announce an early return to producing the Volt late this week and then announce record sales numbers for the Volt a week later. That would be a great combo of news stories that would really help to improve the Volts reputation among the less informed. The people that have driven a Volt already know, but good press would help a lot.
 
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