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The highest wage for a Ford assembly line worker represented by United Auto Workers is $32 per hour. Company and union agreement reached in 2019. Unionized workers in parts factories often earn less than car assemblers.
Other major automakers also pour billions of dollars into battery and electric car factories. Saying it aims to finish production of internal combustion vehicles by 2035 this year, GM plans to establish four battery plants in the United States over the next few years. Ford expects electric models to account for 40 percent of its production by 2030.
Even companies that resist electric cars are changing their tunes. In an abrupt change in strategy, Toyota Motor said this month that it plans to spend billions of dollars over the next decade to build battery factories and hopes to sell two million electric cars a year by the end of the decade. Previously, Toyota had planned to focus on producing hybrid cars and trucks and expressed doubts that all-electric vehicles would take off.
Many other automakers, including Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Hyundai and Stellantis, formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and French Peugeot, are also investing billions of dollars to produce electric vehicles.
“All these companies are building battery power plants because if you’re going to build high-volume EVs, you have to manufacture your own,” said Gartner analyst Mike Ramsey. “The fact that they’re spending billions of dollars means they’re saying, ‘There’s no turning back. We’re really going to do that.”
But Mr Ramsey said it’s unclear how quickly consumers will adopt electric vehicles, which are more expensive than conventional cars and trucks, even after federal and state incentives. Charging stations will also need to expand significantly as more electric models hit the roads.
“There are reasons to have real concerns about where the demand will actually be,” Mr Ramsey said.
Ford’s new truck factory and battery factory in Tennessee will be in Stanton, about 80 miles northeast of Memphis. The campus, which will be called the Blue Oval City, will span six square miles, or nearly twice the size of the Ford Rouge factory that Henry Ford built in the Detroit area a century ago. The Tennessee campus is expected to employ 6,000 people and will be home to truck and battery factories, as well as suppliers and a battery recycling operation. Ford and SK Innovation will invest $5.6 billion in the facility.
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