You wanted cheaper prices, right?

[BetOnBlack]

If my experience with India based workers is anything to go buy they won't save any money, is going to cost them double what they were paying Americans and Europeans, because they will run through Indian engineers that actually aren't engineers and can't do the work competently.
Our company thought our sourcing support for one of our business apps to India was an amazing way to cut costs. $10 million over budget now and moving back state side.
Most companies end up in this dilemma. The perceived cost savings just isn't there.
They also lie. They will stack interview slots just so they can collect the questions asked so they can tailor a candidate to answer the right questions to get someone hired so they make the commission. It's an entirely crooked system and idiots in America only look at short term $$ "gains".

But keep offshoring good paying jobs then wonder why no one can afford to buy your product.

I type this as 3 software developers in india are remoted into my work PC trying to figure out why a server platform they "support" won't upgrade. It's going on 2 hours on this call, and it's been an open issue for 3 weeks.

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[Wbino]

Great. added UAW membership and the cost of reduction in employment...give it 5 years to see the impact...European Companies setup shop here to reduce labor and Tariff costs. NAFTA makes it a no brainer for companies to setup shop in Mexico.

That's why organised labor fought a fierce battle against NAFTA.

 

[travis304]

It's interesting how some complain about auto workers' compensation going up in the U.S., acting as if it's some hindrance to production, or contributing factor to prices, when in fact Stallentis' profit margins are highest in North America -- including in 2021, when economic outlook for auto makers was at its lowest.

Stallentis is simply producing fewer desirable vehicles. Their units sold between 1998 and 2024 have simply declined consecutively.

Maybe if Stellantis wants to make more money they should -- gee whizz -- make more attractive vehicles.

 

[Wbino]

Watching the prices on the Model S Plaid....if it drops another 10K, I might pick it up as my daily driver.

It looks like every other Tesla, no one will know the difference.
Like a 100k 392.

 

[BXFXJeep]

So it seems like we both kinda agree that EVs are still really only viable for a very small sub-group of the overall population...cause if you don't live in an area with cheap electricity and expensive gas, like 90% of the country, then the math is very different.

I live in an area of moderately priced gas AND electricity. I also was given a 2012 Model S Signature Perf as a work vehicle back when I was designing LEED certified BMS systems (these systems included EV charging as part of the package so it was promotional). At the time my "daily" was a Buick Lacrosse CXS. My monthly gas bill for the Buick was $200-220. When I started driving the S, obviously that gas bill went to nothing, but my electric bill went up $130-150/month. That's including being able to charge at work (essentially I was paying only for the juice used in my commute...the charging at work covered multiple daily trips to customer sites).

Exactly.

 

[MayThe4x4BWU]

Isn't this like a person dying of thirst drinking water that is poisoned, because they need water to survive? ?

People who complain will always look for things to complain about.

Prices, hinges, gorilla glass, delivery times, blah blah. Just stop buying them. It won't solve anything, but it will free your mind to complain about other things ?

 

[JeepFiend]

Based off what Jeep engineers have thought were good ideas recently, I don't see a downside to it.

 

[RubiSc0tt]

Getting the lowest bidder for anything is a fool's errand. Moves like this end up costing them more in the long run.

If my experience with India based workers is anything to go buy they won't save any money, is going to cost them double what they were paying Americans and Europeans, because they will run through Indian engineers that actually aren't engineers and can't do the work competently.
Our company thought our sourcing support for one of our business apps to India was an amazing way to cut costs. $10 million over budget now and moving back state side.
Most companies end up in this dilemma. The perceived cost savings just isn't there.
They also lie. They will stack interview slots just so they can collect the questions asked so they can tailor a candidate to answer the right questions to get someone hired so they make the commission. It's an entirely crooked system and idiots in America only look at short term $$ "gains".

But keep offshoring good paying jobs then wonder why no one can afford to buy your product.

I type this as 3 software developers in india are remoted into my work PC trying to figure out why a server platform they "support" won't upgrade. It's going on 2 hours on this call, and it's been an open issue for 3 weeks.

Both of these.
A company I worked for in the past started offshoring jobs to India. Management was touting how great it was, up to and including when they laid off a bunch of US workers and quietly backfilled them India. All while taking money from State/ Local/ Federal Government in the form of Grants and tax breaks.

Every technician and engineer at that place was furious. Not just because of the boldfaced lies that company fed us all along, but because the Indian team were absolutely terrible. Technicians were regularly having to redo their work because they had no idea what they were doing. They were trained, and trained, and trained, and they were still damaging product and fucking things up that we had to regularly unfuck. They would go completely radio silent for LONG periods of our 12 hour shifts, letting work pile up. Then show up at the end, scramble to complete the "easy" tasks to check in or continually ask the same questions and expect us to clean up their mess. We heard the same from our engineering team as well. And after a certain point, any flaws and the product was scrap. Engineering was furious. We lost multiple good people after that going to competitors because they were tired of dealing with this shit. It never ends well.

This is aside from the hypocrisy of all the patriotic BS marketing I'm sure they'll sling out, still.

If you love this country so much, maybe support it's people and keep their jobs here so they'll be able to buy your products? Blindly chasing bottom line profits instead of focusing on overall sustainability will basically turn you into a snake eating it's own tail. It's pathetic we even have these conversations anymore. We all know the "cost savings" won't get passed on to us as consumers, AND we'll lose decent paying jobs from the US economy.

 

[Whaler27]

.

 

[NWJeepr]

We have a world economy-ish, so this makes sense.

It’s not just the employee wage differential...

Suppose you could set up shop where many high school graduates spoke two languages, learned history, understood basic biology and world geography, and knew math through advanced algebra. Suppose they were all happy to train, learn new jobs, and work a solid 40 to 50 hours per week without complaint. And suppose you could provide them with a generous vacation and sick leave and a generous standard of living, cover their whole family with comprehensive medical insurance, and do business with zero risk of having to defend frivolous lawsuits claiming ”hostile work environment”, “gender bias”, or “unfair labor practices”.

Or you could set up shop in Detroit, where none of the above is true.

Look at the pricing on the Indian Jeeps. They are simple, cool, capable, and cheap.

Interesting. That's also America. But you have to pay a wage that makes people feel like they're "doing well" relative to living expenses in order to attract educated, hard-working people who provide more value than their wage suggests.

 

[jeepingib]

It's almost like someone could have seen this coming..... Oh wait, this is exactly what I said was going to happen in the thread about the UAW strike stuff. When it's too expensive to produce vehicles here in the US, production will move to where labor is cheaper. This UAW leader may have won the battle to increase wages, but the auto industry has been laying off workers en masse ever since.

 

[alphawolff]

$50k a year in India might buy you the next Einstein though, and maybe he can figure out how to fit the Hurricane I6 in a JL?

Considering the I6 is having thermostats fail in as little as 15k miles and sticking closed resulting in overheating I don't think you want that.

The thermostat is made completely out of plastic and is a ball-type; the shaft that holds the ball becomes brittle and breaks off causing the ball to float freely and jam the coolant passage.

I'm glad I have my Daimler TJ and Fiat JL I guess when Jeep Wranglers were still mostly American engineered regardless of who owned them. That will no longer be the case.
I fear the future of Wrangler (and Jeep). These moves aren't all about cost cutting but the stated mission of the new head of Jeep to move most engineering out of the U.S. They'll still put up patriotic adds and jeeps with flags but what will it all mean. If I buy another jeep it will be used. Regardless of what people on this forum think, the Bronco is a contender and may end up being the American off-roader if jeep isn't careful!

We had a stellantis rep at the shop the other week for a buyback inspection. Apparently they're buying back so many vehicles it's becoming a massive issue to the bottom line, at least here in north america.

Honestly when half the vehicles I work on have under 20k miles you can see there's massive quality issue. Just today I had a Pacifica in with its backup camera and blindspot sensors not working. Issue was their shared power supply had a spread terminal at the PDC connector. 2024 1400 miles.

 

[Whaler27]

Interesting. That's also America. But you have to pay a wage that makes people feel like they're "doing well" relative to living expenses in order to attract educated, hard-working people who provide more value than their wage suggests.

Maybe that’s it, but I think there’s more to it. Society is changing, Americans are softening and work is less valued. We’ve built a generation that expects to work less and be given more. For a person who hasn’t worked fewer than 50 hour weeks in almost forty years, the UAW contract demands were shocking. I can’t imagine demanding that much for contributing that little.

I worked my ass off even when I was getting paid very little, and so did all of the guys on my team. We cared about the mission, we shared esprit de corps, and we were driven to succeed. Hard work was a shared cultural value, and none of us wanted to underperform and let the team down. We didn’t respect people who didn’t work hard and do their best, and we disdained whiners. I never saw anybody complain about the long hours, which almost always exceeded sixty hour weeks, and occasionally required much more.

We had it easy compared to my parents’ generation, as they survived the depression. Nothing was easy for them, and work wasn’t always available, so I always felt fortunate to be able to earn as much as I could work.

One of my sons is a surgeon. On the first day of his surgical residency he and all of the other interns were gathered in an auditorium for an introduction. During that introduction the chief discussed their next six years together. When he got to the long hours he said, “Congress has limited your work weeks to 80 hours, but you will frequently work more, because the job requires more. You have a lot to learn. You can do it in six years of 80 hour weeks, or twelve years of 40 hour weeks. Which would you prefer?” Obviously, it was a rhetorical question, but the point was made: suck it up and get to work. Surgical interns have no choice, but I don’t think that message resonates with most modern Americans outside of the military.

At my work we routinely get special funding for overtime. Fifteen years ago we put rules in place to prevent people from signing up for multiple overtime shifts before others had an opportunity to sign up for even one — because prior to that rule all of the available shifts would be filled within a day or two. We don’t have to worry about that anymore. Our new workforce is different. Today, many of those shifts never get filled, even if they’re posted for several weeks. They pay better than ever, but our newest generation is less willing to work. There are exceptions, but most expect to be rewarded more for contributing less. They also complain more. For us, the net impact is measurable: we need more employees to produce the same amount of work in a year, and we spend more on attorneys and labor litigation. I think the same thing is happening everywhere except, maybe, in surgery.

 

[Sparty]

I have direct experience in this.

Trust me - you (Stellantis) get what you pay for. They give degrees out over there like Cracker Jack prizes. Absolutely zero experience. To their credit, they work very hard.

What will happen is that 80% of the "engineering" will get farmed out to the people over there. Then, the real engineers with the company (at greatly reduced numbers) are going to be responsible to make sure that the cheap engineers met all of the requirements.

Things get missed and timelines are valued over quality. Good luck

Thank God they're not working on things like airplanes. Oh....wait.......

 

[TrentYoung]

To cut costs, Stellantis is hiring engineers where they're cheaper. That's not in the US.

https://www.carscoops.com/2024/05/s...-and-india-instead-of-150000-ones-in-america/

The workers asked for Unionization knowing the risks to their jobs. The sheep got led in to the Union and now they are getting rightfully sheared.
Companies have the right to make the best profit possible for the shareholders that invested their money into the company.... and rightfully so.

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