(Crain’s) — Ford Motor Co. plans to add 1,200 jobs when it begins making the Explorer sport-utility vehicle at its Far South Side factory on Torrence Avenue later this year, Crain’s has learned.
Gov. Pat Quinn is due to join Ford executives when they announce the Explorer production at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the plant near 130th Street. Plans to bring the Explorer from Louisville, Ky., to the under-utilized Chicago plant were first reported by Crain’s nearly a year ago. The move was helped by recent tax credits approved by Mr. Quinn.
Adding the Explorer probably will mean bringing a second shift back to the Torrence Avenue plant, which has been down to one shift for the past year. The factory now employs about 1,400 workers.
Ford’s parts-stamping plant in Chicago Heights, which employs about 750 workers, also would be helped by the arrival of another vehicle at Torrence Avenue.
Ford is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in Illinois on launching the new Explorer model that will be built here. It has been retrofitting the plant for months.
The Explorer, one of Ford’s most popular vehicles, has been redesigned for a smaller, more fuel-efficient car platform that’s produced at the Chicago plant. The new Explorer is expected to go on sale in the new model year starting in August or September and likely would be the plant’s highest-volume vehicle.
It’s the latest good news involving the Torrence Avenue plant, which last year began making a redesigned Taurus. The new Taurus has been selling better than previous models, as Ford benefits from domestic buyers spooked by the bankruptcies of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler.
No comments:
Post a Comment