The ongoing UAW strike against General Motors has pushed the initial production date for the 2020 Corvette Stingray back to January 20th, 2020.
According to MidEngineCorvetteForum.com, an employee on Chevrolet’s live chat service told one of its members, who has a low VIN for their 2020 Corvette Stingray order, that the target production week (TPW) for the car is now the third week of January. GM had initially said the TPW for the vehicle would be December 2nd, 2019. Other members on the forum who had TPWs in early December have reported that GM has not given them a production start date earlier than January 20th as well.
This is hardly surprising, as the UAW strike is currently in its fifth week and shows little sign of coming to a conclusion anytime soon. The plant has yet to even begin to retool for production of the mid-engine Corvette C8, as it still has orders to fulfill for the Corvette C7. Obviously, Chevrolet cannot continue building the Corvette C7, nor retool the plant, until the UAW returns to work.
Earlier this month, GM released a statement reiterating that 2020 Corvette Stingray production was planned to commence in late 2019, with the 2020 Corvette Convertible expected to start rolling off the line in January. At the time, it said it was “too early to speculate on production timing impacts on any of our vehicles due to the UAW work stoppage,” though with the strike still ongoing, it doesn’t seem very likely it will be able to stick to its initial TPW timeline.
Further evidence of the revised TPW dates is available via New Jersey’s Kerbeck Chevrolet—the world’s largest Corvette dealership. The earliest production date on the dealership’s order tracking page is indeed January 20th and all orders have been assigned event code 3000, which is reserved for orders that have been accepted by GM production control. According to MidEngineCorvetteForum.com, early orders had previously been assigned event code 3300 for cars that have been scheduled for production, but those have now been rolled back to code 3000. Furthermore, only one of Kerbeck’s 111 displayed orders has a TPW for January 20th, with all others now scheduled to begin production sometime in February.
Production could be pushed back to later into 2020 if the UAW strike continues for much longer. The union is adamant that GM assigns new products to Lordstown Assembly and Detroit-Hamtramck, among other demands, but GM is refusing to re-open the Ohio plant or keep the Michigan plant open. Lordstown shut down in March, while Detroit-Hamtramck will shut its lights off in January.
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Source: MidEngineCorvetteForum.com
Comments
Uaw is a parasite.
I said this would impact the C8 launch! Others here insisted it wouldn’t now comes reporting saying it, in fact, will delay the SOP.
The problem with these things is that when the media is hyping the “first ever” mid-engined Corvette as the greatest thing out of GM in 40 years or whatever they are saying, the last thing GM wants is for customers to show up at dealers all excited but have no cars for them to see.
GM:
– is losing tens of millions of dollars every day
– inventories of key models have been reduced to the point, where they are losing sales
– Now future models are being delayed
The workers:
– have gone without a pay check for 4 weeks
– will have to work thru the usual winter break
– will see their profit sharing checks reduced as this costs GM more and more money.
The Union
– is looking more negative in the public’s eyes. Reducing the chances it is able to unionize transplant factories
– no longer collecting union dues from GM workers.
– watching auto sales fall as it’s strike fund slowly diminishes. Lessening the chances Ford & FCA go along with a deal reached with GM.
Whose winning?
I’ve purchased probably 25 vehicles, maybe 30. All except 2 have been GM.
This whole situation has me interested in what the 2021 F150 will be like. I know Ford is stuck with the losers at the UAW too, but this leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I cant believe I’m saying this, but I’m glad my 1 year old Silverado was made in Mexico by most likely harder working and more grateful to be working employees.
You probably never worked a day in your life much less a 105 degree factory 12 hours a day!!!
With the UAW Leadership’s corruption scandal and convictions of 9 people (so far), it would appear the Attorneys are the ones on a long winning streak…
I really think this puts the UAW in bad light among Corvette owners, most of who are are eagerly waiting and will be extremely disappointed with GM delaying the production of the most amazing sports car of the decade. I also think Corvette needs to be exclusively built using skilled non UAW labor.
Lot of angry old people this coming January ?…..?
I’m now at the point that I want GM not to give in. Let the strike go through Christmas. Let my TPW for my C8 go into March, April or May from its original TPW of December 9th.
Every striking worker will get an $8000 bonus to thank them for the strike. Way to stick it to the man boys!
That’s a 2B loss right there.