President Donald Trump’s moves to impose tariffs on a variety of imported goods – including automobiles – has prompted a number of automakers to announce investments in expanding U.S.-based manufacturing. Ford, however, already builds the vast majority of its vehicles that are sold in the U.S. in the U.S., so such a thing isn’t quite as big a concern. However, The Blue Oval does currently assemble four models outside of the country that are sold there, though the United Auto Workers (UAW) union recently pointed out that it has some unused capacity at three existing American plants, too.
The UAW recently conducted an analysis of U.S. automaker manufacturing capacity and found that this particular industry already has the infrastructure and skilled workforce to build millions more vehicles than it already is, rather than offshoring that work. According to the report, the U.S. auto industry had the capacity to manufacture over 14.7 million vehicles at active, existing plants in 2024, but only built 10.2 million, leaving 4.5 million units of unused capacity.
For The Blue Oval, this list highlights three existing facilities that aren’t operating at full capacity – the Flat Rock Assembly plant, which is operating at 21 percent capacity, the Louisville Assembly plant (58 percent capacity), and the Michigan Assembly plant (56 percent capacity). As Ford Authority previously reported, Ford Bronco production at the Michigan Assembly plant has been trimmed back amid waning demand, while Louisville is reportedly set to close later this year for a major retooling.
This report highlights precisely why the UAW supports Trump’s tariffs, as they very well could result in the addition of many more union jobs (and dues) across the U.S. The same is true of Ford CEO Jim Farley, who has been supportive of those same levies, which isn’t surprising given the fact that the company is better positioned to navigate them compared to most of its peers.
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There’s more to the equation than just “open capacity”. A lot of Ford’s Assembly Plants cannot accept additional complexity in their given state. Is the U.S. government going to fund the expansion of warehouses, storage, tooling, capital to utilize that “open capacity” for other nameplates?
If Ford has the financial stability to pay there CEO who is a single person over $20 million a year I think they can find the funding to deal with said issues. The same can be said about almost all large company’s in this country. Stop paying CEOs millions a year and invest in keeping manufacturing and jobs in the US.
Sam you sure are naive, or ignorant, or both.
Yes, 20 million dollars is peanuts when compared to a 100’s of billion dollar investment in retooling a plant. The tariff thing is a vicious circle of a dog chasing it’s tail. Consumer confidence is plummeting due to the Trump accelerated cost of everything…and they thought Biden’s polices were poor…and that affects everything. Final assembly is about all our advanced, consumer-based economy can handle due to labor costs, and declining labor availability…you may have heard that the birth rate has been falling for some time now…and banishing immigrants certainly won’t help.
Other countries have lower labor costs, thus they can produce many labor intensive sub-assemblies at lower costs. When these are integrated into final assemblies here in the states, it helps control the final cost of that particular finished product. You may have heard the example of mobile phone assemble in China compared to the same product assemble here…$1,000 versus $3,000. Expand that out to many products, and the consumer confidence aspect just becomes that much worse.
We’re a consumer based economy…we buy things…not a manufacturing based economy…that ship has sailed.
Mark, I usually disagree with almost everything you post in other threads. You’re spot on with this one though, especially the last line.
It does not cost hundreds of billions of dollars to retool a plant. The figure is more like $500 million to $1 billion