Ford, FCA Announce Michigan, Ohio Plant Investments

Ford announces a $1.6 billion investment in its Livonia, MI, transmission plant and Ohio Assembly Plant in Avon Lake, OH, while FCA US says it will spend nearly $75 million to retool its Trenton, MI, Engine Complex for production of a new 4-cyl. engine.

Ford’s latest investment creates or retains 500 hourly jobs at the Livonia plant to build a new 10-speed transmission to be first introduced in the all-new F-150 Raptor and certain other F-150 pickups. Production at the facility, which already builds a 6-speed transmission used in a variety of models, begins in June.

The Ohio Assembly investment will preserve 150 hourly jobs and is earmarked for production of F-Series Super Duty chassis cab units. The plant began building F-350, F-450 and F-550 Super Duty chassis cab configurations earlier this year. It also produces the Ford F-650 and F-750, which was insourced from Mexico last year, as well as E-Series cutaway vans and stripped chassis.

Ford says in a news release its investments of $1.4 billion in the Livonia plant and $200 million in Ohio Assembly Plant are part of a $9 billion commitment the automaker made in its 2015 collective-bargaining agreement with the UAW to continue investing in its U.S. plants.

Livonia Transmission and Ohio Assembly employ 1,500 and 1,650 workers, respectively.

Also Tuesday, FCA announces its $75 million investment at its twin-facility Trenton Engine Complex will be used to retool the north plant to produce a next-generation 4-cyl. engine on a flexible production line installed in 2012.

FCA says 245 jobs will be retained when production of the new engine begins in third-quarter 2017. It will replace the 3.6L Pentastar V-6 in production since 2009 and currently assembled on the flex line at Trenton North. Pentastar engine production will continue at Trenton South, Mack Avenue, MI, Engine and Saltillo South in Mexico.

The Trenton Engine Complex employs more than 1,500 people.