Made in the U.S.A.
In an unpredicted move, Ford has turned it’s focus to three Michigan facilities investing $1.2 billion in total.
The sudden change of plans has been applauded by President Trump who, while on the campaign trail, criticized the car giant for taking jobs out of the US. A tweet by President Trump sums up his enthusiasm for the decision change “Big announcement by Ford today. Major investment to be made in three Michigan plants. Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!”
Back to Detroit
Joe Hinrichs, Ford Americas President, stated that Tuesday’s announcement came after a state meeting where $31 million in grants and 15 years of tax exemptions were given to Ford.
As a part of this new initiative, Ford will spend $850 million to upgrade existing plants in Detroit.
One of the plants, the Michigan Assembly Plant, will be set to build the Ranger and newly redesigned Bronco started in 2018 and 2020 respectively. The plant currently makes small cars such as the Fiesta, but the car company plans to move production of those cars down to an existing Mexico facility to make way for the new assembly line.
They don’t call it motor city for nothin’
In addition to upgrading the Michigan Assembly Plant to produce the new trucks and SUVs, Ford will also spend $150 million upgrading a second plant.
The second plant getting a bit of TLC is their Romeo Engine Plant which currently produces their Romeo Engines.
By making this investment Ford says that they will either create or retain 130 jobs at that particular plant.
Innovation as well as industrialization
In the last part of the plan, the auto-manufacturer will spend $200 million on a data center to store information collected from self driving and connected cars.
The data center will be located at an assembly plant in the Detroit suburb of Flat Rock.
Ford made an announcement in January that the Flat Rock plant would be getting $700 million in upgrades as well as 700 new jobs to produce and manufacture electric and self driving cars.
A move everyone is excited about
With a 2.2% spike in Ford shares the afternoon of the announcement, it seems that the of upgrading plants and bringing jobs back to America has had a positive impact on the people and the economy.
