GM Toledo Plant Worker Excited About EV Future
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Some GM workers embrace the introduction of electric vehicles in spite of concerns about the future of automotive industry in a time of major technological change, according to recent interviews.
The New York Times recently spoke with auto sector workers and union representatives in Ohio, garnering their opinions on the EV revolution. At least some of those interviewed were positive about current changes in the car industry.
One GM transmission factory employee, Erick Belmer, told the Times he is excited about the start of electric motor production even though “it’s going to be a little bit of a learning curve.” Belmer commutes 140 miles to reach his job at the GM Toledo Powertrain plant in Toledo, Ohio.
Other individuals expressed a warier form of optimism, including a United Auto Workers (UAW) local president, Tony Totty, who said his fellow local members will likely succeed in the new EV world but that there is “an expiration date on those facilities and those communities” that are dependent on gasoline engine manufacture.
Totty noted that the electric vehicle revolution “is the largest transition in our industry since its inception” and at least some workers will be left with obsolete skills. Some previous GM EV plant ideas fell through, prompting Totty and other people involved in Ohio’s automotive industry to remain cautious.
Ultium drive units
Ohio is the foremost state in the U.S. for internal combustion engine manufacture, with approximately 90,000 people employed in automotive sector work of various kinds, including GM production facilities.
GM Toledo Powertrain produces the 10-speed automatic transmission, used in GM full-size trucks, full-size SUVs, and rear-wheel drive luxury sedans including the Cadillac CT4 and Cadillac CT5. The General announced a $760 million investment in the facility last September to retool it for production of Ultium Drive motors. These drive units will provide motivation for the Chevy Silverado EV, GMC Sierra EV, and GMC Hummer EV, among other vehicles.
Other recent GM investments in facilities related to EV production include $491 million for the GM metal stamping operations in Marion, Indiana. GM’s goal is to produce one million EVs annually in North America by 2025. The automaker also says it means to introduce 30 new electric vehicles worldwide by 2025.
GM also states it will have EVs in one third of automotive segments by 2025 as well. The segments GM is targeting with its near-term EV rollout are the most popular among new vehicle buyers, accounting for 70 percent of vehicle sales each year.
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So they found one guy that’s happy about it. Seems about right.
He must really like where he lives to drive 140 miles, I’m assuming that a round trip. Back in 1987 I was on layoff from Delhi Steering Systems and had the opportunity to go to Saturn which was a 126 mile round trip and decided that would mean a new car every year, gas was only $.76/gal then. I declined and waited 5 more weeks until I was recalled to work. No regrets, although I would’ve met my future step son in law earlier. Lol
Depends on the commute, though, right? A buddy drove an hour each way and loved it. He lived in NW Arkansas and had a C5 Corvette. Fun car, fun roads; he loved it. An hour each way in bumper-to-bumper traffic is a whole other kettle of fish.
Good move and we all know how Saturn turned out.
If you want one buy one, but don’t force me to buy one, I’m not interested.
Thanks for letting us know!
Probably matches what you’re paid to spew the same empty anti-EV talking points….
Are you guys going to make any gas engines>?
I’ll bet the rest of the smarter employees realize that 30-40% of auto jobs will be lost with the switch to EV.
Hopefully his plant doesn’t loose more jobs than that.
The jobs are being lost to automation, and it was happening long before the switch to EVs.
Most folks don’t realize that automation and AI going to take so many jobs away.
So true! I think that in 20 years there will be very few ICE vehicles on the road. Automation driven by AI will take millions of jobs. Andrew Yang is right, there will have to be a GBI (guaranteed basic income). It will be the ultimate test for society. Will the wealthy ruling class share the wealth or let society decline to rampant crime and poverty.
The missing key ingredient here is that millions of people love to go to work.
Self worth, having a purpose, and working with others is VERY important in life to those millions.
AI and automation destroys that, so what’s the point of all of this?
Wealthier top level people, poverty, despair, and a huge sense of worthlessness for everyone else.
Wow, what a dismal outlook.
Alternatively, a person on a guaranteed basic income might use his or her time to do something in the arts to help make their local culture more vibrant. Or maybe they go fishing. Even if they just sit on a couch eating Cheetos, they’re still contributing to the economy. Don’t think so? Ask someone who works in a Cheetos factory. Or for the ad agency that markets Cheetos.
Robots in a canning factory aren’t going to eliminate jobs people love. ChatGPT, on the other hand, could very easily eliminate a bunch of Cheetos-marketing jobs that people, if they don’t love, at least enjoy more than if they were working in a cannery.
I dunno. Glass half empty? I’ll take half-full every time. And there’s the difference between you and me.
Art? Cheetos? Vibrant culture?
Maybe people should just sit on their @sses, collect government checks, and play acoustic guitar between joints in the park all day.
So purposeful, so inspiring, so pie-in-the-sky liberal there Esky.
Are you reading what you’re writing with a straight face?
Yup. Are you? If machines are doing all the work, and companies are maximizing their profits ‘cuz they don’t have to pay employees anymore, what are people supposed to do? Serve other people lunch? Mow each other’s lawns? The whole point of automation is to give humans more free time. Corporations get to make their money; we get to have more free time.
Look, I get it. Why should you have to go to work every day when other people get to sit on their couches eating Cheetos?
First, the Cheeto-eaters aren’t living what my granny used to call “high off the hog.” They’re scraping by as best they can. Second, anyone who’s living well is doing so at least partly because of the Cheeto-eaters. Don’t believe me? Get rid of the bottom third of the earners (including non-earners) and see what happens to the economy.
You’ve got this caricature in your head of what life would be like if I were in charge. All rainbows and bunnies. I have this caricature in my head of what life would be like if you were in charge. All thunderstorms. And bunnies? Haven’t seen any for years, ‘cuz unchecked human activity killed them off long ago.
Yeah, I’ll take my fantasy any day over yours….
Esko i will disagree on the premise that automation is to give humans more free time. No, its so there are no unions, less human error, no sick days, no preganacies, no off time, no paid vacations, capitalism is great for many things and ideas but we have been at a point for a very long time that the wages in many places had gotten so high that there was a need for it. One that made money sense, Every country is eating our lunch on labor prices, the good ole USA has the highest paid people who do the least amount of work, on average. There will always be skilled labor, but there are so many jobs here that u could teach a monkey to do that make 30-45 dollars an hr not counting overtime. Yep those jobs are gonna be gone. Thankfully a lot of white collars jobs as well.
We don’t need a GBI, it’s just basic macroeconomics. Very similar situation to the industrial revolution. Economics isn’t a zero sum game, i.e. we have a fixed output, and if automation takes over a portion of that output, you’re outta luck. Technology improvements like automation EXPAND your economy/GDP, those people are now free to work on other things.
The only trick to it is the transition and making sure you’re displaced workers are ready for what’s next.
Work on other things? Like coding?
More people displaced by automation leaving fewer jobs overall. That ratio is not sustainable.
Question is who’s going to pay for the GBI if nobody is working?
It’s going to come from the wealthy and corporations profits. Yeah, some redistribution of wealth. Look, it comes down to what kind of world are we going to live in. The very wealthy are going to be stuck in places like Elysium if they don’t agree to do this. They’ll need to live in compounds with 24/7 security just to keep the rabble out. Birth control will have to become mandatory, and abortion will be welcomed.
I think we already had an experiment with the Andrew Yang Utopia, it was called the Covid lockdowns. Free money for everybody, many folks out of work…people seemed very content and happy during all of that? The only drawback is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money to give away to all of us peasants. The total wealth of all US billionaires is roughly $3 trillion, that would be enough cash to run the US Federal Government as it stands today for about 8 months. You could confiscate all corporate wealth, about $31 trillion, but that would only fund about a third of AOC’s new green deal. Where would the rest of the money come from to fund all of the free stuff for us?
There’s enough AR’s out there, the rabble will just take it from whoever has it. Nature will take its course.
You are probably right about that.
Facing higher taxes, corporations will just leave the US. Higher taxes will be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.
No guaranteed basic income!
How about we return to capitalism and let the market decide? Saying that AI will steel all the jobs and that we need gbi is like saying we needed it back when the tractor was invented and we jumped from a society of 60% farmers to 2%. Those who benefit from AI will make a clean profit, and reinvest it into other industries that need human power. People who loose their job to AI will be rehired elsewhere and have bettered lives
GBI on the other hand will ruin everything! Look what it did to the eastern block countries during communism despite having no prohibitive environmental regulations. Look how our economy has suffered in the last 2 years going from a slight crony capitalist state to full cronyism, without AI.
The solution is free enterprise bar none.
Eskimo man.
Mostly false.
Gas motor assembly, transmission radiator exhaust system jobs are all gone with ev and replaced by an electric motor.
An electric motor someone has to build.
You’re right, EVs are much less complicated, and require less human labor to manufacture. The fact is, however, ICE vehicles have been built using less and less human labor for the last four decades. But it has nothing to do with EVs. Automation was happening long before the EV craze.
It’s the nature of capitalism, not EVs. Cut costs as much as possible in order to maximize profits. First, GM moved production of the Nova to Mexico in the ’70s. Other auto manufacturers followed. Then Honda started building assembly-line robots in the ’90s. Other auto manufacturers followed.
It will have about the same jobs……. But they won’t be GM jobs. They will hire 100,000 Chinese children to place and connect the individual battery cells and call them a supplier.
Notice the recent mushy, all-positive stories of EVs recently? No agenda here…
Agenda? Ya mean, like, trying to reduce the amount by which we’re effing up the planet?
You mean by strip mining, raping the earth (as in suddenly mining is totally and completely acceptable)? Or underground water contamination? Or emissions to extract, produce, and use more electricity?
Esky, you should know better that no matter what, digging, drilling, or mining for energy sources all have their consequences. So yeah, agenda.
No no we just keep saying no to mines in America so they have to make the cars without mining………that’s how that works right?
To be honest, I don’t mind electric cars, I’ll probably own one eventually when the battery range improves. But the way many of the same people that demand all electric vehemently oppose mining in the US is extremely frustrating, just to instead mine it in China with 10x worse environmental practices
Or we could just pay more for the same things, but gathered and manufactured in a more responsible way. Bet that’ll go over big with the peanut gallery….
You’re right: Destruction is inevitable. Just the act of breathing transforms the configuration of molecules in the air (try getting oxygen into your lungs in a form they can use after being in an unventilated, enclosed space for a while). Unplanned destruction, however, is just plain stupid.
Amazing how EVs have forced all the righties to grow an environmental conscience. The irony is that they use it to justify pouring more carbon into the atmosphere….
Esko if u think evs help the planet understand, currently your dead wrong, sorry but you are. Evs arent for the planet and anyone who thinks so understand you read to many fairy tales of free energy to many times.
They found the one guy that basically thinks their employer can do no wrong. Every facility has one and that’s always the person they use as the model for everyone else….lol.
Oh goody more future layoffs and lost jobs. How lovely