GM has halted production at the São José dos Campos plant in Brazil, the company itself confirmed following reports in the Brazilian media from the workforce.
The automaker halted production at Brazil’s São Jose dos Campos plant, which will be idle for about three weeks due to a lack of components on the factory’s assembly lines, according to the vice president of the São Jose dos Campos metalworkers union, Valmir Mariano. As a result, the plant will grant collective vacations to 80 percent of its workforce, which amounts to about 4,000 employees.
A source familiar with the matter told Automotive Business that the missing component at the São Jose dos Campos plant is an imported microchip for the OnStar system that controls the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals of the Chevy S10 and TrailBlazer SUV built at the facility. In addition, the source also states that the Brazilian plant’s yard is full of units of the midsize pickup and SUV, waiting for the installation of the electronic component.
Meanwhile, the company said the measure is part of a scheduled production adjustment that coincides with the unit’s workers’ collective vacations. “The São Jose dos Campos plant will make a temporary adjustment in the production of Chevrolet S10 pickup and related areas, and will grant collective vacations to employees between March 27th and April 11th,” said GM Brazil in a statement.
All this occurs in the midst of tensions between GM and the São Jose dos Campos plant workers union, who threatened to go on strike to demand labor stability. Valmir Mariano denounced that the North American manufacturer has laid off dozens of unit workers since March 3rd as part of the recently announced plan to cut jobs to reduce costs from the company’s headquarters in Detroit.
Production of the Chevy S10 and TrailBlazer SUV will be temporarily suspended at the São Jose dos Campos plant in Brazil, while the company resolves the component shortage and the labor tension with the union, with whom it reportedly agreed to guarantee the stability of the contracts for 40 days. In addition to producing the aforementioned vehicles, the São Jose dos Campos complex also manufactures the powertrain shared by both models.
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Comments
Really? The most useless chip in the vehicle and GM halts production. If you can build and sell vehicle without their chips for heated seats, parking sensors, etc., and tell customers you will get around to retrofitting the chips at some point in the future, or even not at all, you can certainly do the same for OnStar chips. And most everyone wouldn’t even miss the OnStar chips.
If the people get rowdy, the government needs to be able to shut the vehicle down. So, OnStar is necessary.
Instead of trying to turn this around into a conspiracy. Maybe think of it as GM making sure they get as much potential income as possible, whether it’s a contractual obligation between onstar or that fact that there are services sold with it, it doesn’t mean the government will force companies to just turn off vehicles.
There are more real things in life to worry about.
Other than pretty much every conspiracy in the last 70 years has turned out to be true. JFK and the CIA, Covid and the lab leak, ticktock. Ford even has patented a new system to be able to shut off cars. And to make matters worse the WEF has it in their white papers that they want all autos controlled remotely. If they don’t want us coming up with conspiracy theories, maybe they should stop conspiring! FYI, many cars you can pull the fuse on Onstar and besides a check engine light, they run just fine.
You do realize that certain components in car nows are all connected. Like Windows and Apple products. You make it sound like GM is the only on with telematics. You can’t buy a car without it. Yes GM might be adding it to the price so don’t buy it.
You also can’t just swap chips from one component to another. From what I have read GM is retroffitting previous vehicles. It takes time.
This is the Trailblazer we need in the NA market.
I agree we need a body on frame mid size Chevy SUV, but not this one, its at least 10 years old so not up to date.
I would rather see them refresh the NA Trailblazer that was built from 2001to 2007 with the straight six .
It was the right size . Update that vehicle with a modern power train and Independent rear suspension
Call it the K5 Blazer !!
123 horse power you tell us
Those Pictures makes me think about Memories when Visited the Factory in 1995 as Employee, Remember Die-Casting … !