Photo: Toyota
Toyota will slow production down a bit, Lamborghini is making 15 more Aventadors, and Ford. All this and much more in the “Morning Shift” dated March 17, 2022.
1st Gear: “Intentional Pause” Toyota
Toyota released a statement Thursday laying out its production plans for the next three months and what it boils down to is how Toyota has learned to stop worrying and love the semiconductor shortage. Toyota’s statement is worth quoting at length because it is very unusual:
Until now, we have carried out remanufacturing with great efforts from various stakeholders in order to deliver as many vehicles as possible to customers in the shortest possible time. However, due to a shortage of parts, we had to make repeated last-minute adjustments to production plans, which put a significant strain on production sites, including suppliers’ sites.
In these circumstances, and in light of the review of past events, we have revised our production plans to be more reasonable in line with recent realities. In particular, we are positioning the three-month period from April to June as a “deliberate pause”, and we will create plans based on the structure of personnel and the capacity of suppliers. By doing this, we will create a healthy work environment where safety and quality are the top priority, not overreaching facilities, pushing people to their limits, and working overtime. We will then inform our suppliers of plans that take into account the risks of production cuts and other factors three months in advance, review production plans on a monthly and three-month basis, and share these plans with our suppliers.
Based on the above, our global production target for April, including overseas production, is approximately 750,000 units (250,000 units in Japan and 500,000 units overseas). While the number of units we made available to our suppliers at the start of the year includes a recovery from previous production cuts, due to the impact of semiconductor shortages, we have adjusted our production plan by approximately 150,000 units worldwide. The average global production plan from April to June is about 800,000 units.
Last year, Toyota produced just over 10 million vehicles, or about 840,000 vehicles per month, so its new goal of 800,000 vehicles per month is not far off, although Toyota is capitulating to [vaguely gestures at everything] also very relative. I’m also deliberately pausing if this nonsense continues.
2nd gear: Lamborghini will replace burnt-out cars on this ship
The Felicity Ace fire claimed the lives of thousands of vehicles, including many Lamborghini, Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen and Bentley. The good news, as reported by Automotive News on Thursday, is that automakers will be able to replace most, if not all, of them for customers, including the 15 Aventadors on board.
All U.S. buyers, whose expensive cars are now at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in the burnt carcass of Felicity Ace, will receive their orders, including 15 discontinued Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae, CEOs of Volkswagen Group’s premium brands. told Automotive News.
At an online roundtable with reporters from the UK and US the day before Audi’s annual press conference on Thursday, Automobili Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann said supercar brand executives had to struggle to replace $500,000 hand-built versions of the Aventador Ultimae on board. .
“This was the release that closed the production of the Aventador and there were 15 people on board,” Winkelmann said. Brand representatives previously reported that there were 85 Lamborghinis on board, mostly Urus SUVs, but did not say how many of them were produced by Aventador Ultimaes.
“We’ve come together and luckily we can replace these vehicles so our customers in the US won’t be affected by the sinking. This is good news,” Winkelmann said. “We can replace everything else. The Aventador was difficult, but we did it.”
[…]
Bentley Motors CEO Adrian Hallmark said his luxury brand has already “found a solution” to replace more than half of the 189 pre-sold Bentleys that were on board the ship and will be able to replace the rest within six months.
“We have already found a solution for 100 people that we can quickly redirect, and we will catch up with the rest within six months,” he said. “We made a promise to these customers and we are doing some smart things with dealers to keep [those customers] mobile, which I won’t talk about.”
Audi CEO Markus Duesmann said that around 1,800 German premium brand vehicles aboard the Felicity Ace will also be replaced. “We can replace them,” he said. “It will take some time, but we will do our best.”
This is good for automakers, but also why they pay for insurance.
3rd gear: Ford recalls 157,306 F-150s due to possible wiper failure
Ford says it has received more than 750 reports that the windshield wipers are working on the 2021 F-150 and that the engine is at fault. The owners of the affected F-150s will be contacted next month.
From the recall report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:
Safety Hazard Description: An inoperative wiper motor can cause reduced or lost visibility under certain conditions, increasing the risk of an accident.
Cause Description: The main causative factors that led to non-working or poorly functioning windshield wipers were poor spot welding of the motor brush plate, insufficient adhesive application to the motor magnet, and insufficient motor nut torque.
[…]
Correction Program Description: Owners will be notified by mail and instructed to take their vehicle to a Ford or Lincoln dealer for wiper motor replacement. There is no charge for this service.
4th Gear: other, very predictable news
Cars are less likely to hit pedestrians when turning than trucks and SUVs, according to a new study published by the Associated Press. I hope you sat up for it.
A study released Thursday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety points to the growing popularity of large vehicles as a possible factor in the rise in pedestrian deaths on US roads. The authors also wondered if the wider pillars that hold up the roofs of large vehicles prevent drivers from noticing people walking around the corners of the vehicles.
“The association between these vehicle types and some common pedestrian crashes indicates that an increase in the number of SUVs on the roads could be changing the crash landscape,” said Jessica Cicchino, study author and vice president of research at the institute.
While the study cites previous research showing blind spots caused by “A-pillars” between the windshield and cockpit, the authors said more research is needed to link blind spots to increased mortality.
[…]
The researchers looked at federal statistics on pedestrian fatalities as well as all pedestrian accidents reported by the North Carolina Police Department from 2010 to 2018.
Statistics from North Carolina showed that pickup trucks were 42% more likely than cars to hit pedestrians when turning left. SUVs were 23% more likely to hit people than cars. The study found that there was no significant difference in the likelihood of a right turn crash for different types of vehicles.
Outside intersections, pickup trucks were 80% more likely than cars to hit pedestrians on the road. According to the IIHS, SUVs are 61% more likely and minivans are 45% more likely to hit people than cars.
As trucks and SUVs got bigger, so did their A-pillars to meet federal standards designed to prevent roof collapse in the event of a rollover. I suppose it is not surprising that few people have thought about how this might affect visibility.
5th gear: man leaves work
According to Automotive News, the CEO of ZF, the German supplier probably best known for its transmissions, has said he will step down early next year. Wolf-Henning Scheider was hired by ZF in 2018 and oversaw the further expansion of the supplier. Among the departure of auto business executives, this one seems quite normal.
ZF did not say who could replace Scheider.
“After over three decades in the automotive industry and reaching the age of 60, he has decided to retire from the industry at the end of the year to pursue other issues,” the supplier said.
[…]
Under Scheider, ZF continued to expand, most notably with the $7 billion acquisition of Wabco in 2019 to bolster its expertise in trucks and driver assistance systems.
Scheider has also faced a range of industry crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a global semiconductor shortage, and now the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Andreas Brand of the Zeppelin Foundation praised Scheider in a statement saying, “The fact that ZF is back on track after the last two years of the crisis is also the result of the work of Wolf-Henning Scheider. We regret his personal decision, but also respect him.”
This is how you want to leave when your boss says you’ve made a bad personal decision.
Reverse: Saint Patrick’s Day.
Neutral: How are you?
The clerk at my liquor store explained to me last night that liquor sales drop in the spring and early summer because people who prefer beer tend to prefer beer at that time. I’m sure there’s a ton of data on this somewhere, though I’ll take his word for it.