Jeep’s SUV Production Scaled Down, Jobs Cut
Jeep’s parent company Stellantis announced on Thursday that the Detroit plant (4,600 employees) where the Grand Cherokee is built will temporarily move from three to two shifts and reduce production in the process, though it failed to specify how many units will be cut.
The reason for the move is "in part because of the need to manage sales of the vehicles they produce to comply with California emissions regulations that are measured on a state-by-state basis," the automaker said in a statement.
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A day earlier, Stellantis said it would seek to void the California Framework Agreement that was developed secretly with some competitors in 2019 to reduce emissions, as it creates “a double standard which also destabilizes our production schedules, the livelihoods of our 56,000 U.S. employees, and the thousands of spinoff jobs generated by our operations.”
In another, unrelated announcement, Stellantis decided to make changes to the Toledo, Ohio assembly plant that builds the Jeep Wrangler, mainly a switch from an alternative work schedule to a traditional two-shift operation. Production will be affected down there, as well.
In total, more than 3,600 employees are said to be at risk of losing their jobs or having their work hours cut, as Reuters reports. The exact number is not yet known.
For the past several months, Stellantis has limited shipments of gas-only vehicles to dealers in U.S. states that have adopted California's emissions rules while also prioritizing these same states for deliveries of plug-in hybrid models like the Grand Cherokee 4xe and Wrangler 4xe.
