Jeep Cherokee Could End With Stellantis Belvidere Plant Closure

By way of the third quarter of this yr, Jeep Cherokee profits are down a whopping 61 % 12 months-to-day compared to final year, with just 30,852 offered in the to start with 9 months of 2022, in accordance to Stellantis. Which is the context for an announcement on Friday that Stellantis will be idling the plant that makes Cherokees, in Belvidere, Illinois. Could it be the conclusion of the street for Cherokee, too? For now, Stellantis isn’t indicating.

Through WIFR, Stellantis has released the adhering to assertion:

Our sector has been adversely afflicted by a multitude of factors like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the world microchip lack, but the most impactful challenge is the raising cost similar to the electrification of the automotive market place.

Stellantis has taken a variety of steps to stabilize production and strengthen performance at its North American amenities to maintain affordability and customer satisfaction in conditions of good quality.

While it considers other avenues to optimize operations, Stellantis has built the final decision to idle the Belvidere (Illinois) Assembly plant successful Feb. 28, 2023.

This hard but needed action will final result in indefinite layoffs, which are anticipated to exceed six months and might constitute a job loss underneath the Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notification (Warn) Act. As a end result, Alert notices have been issued to both equally hourly and salaried staff members. The enterprise will make every single effort to spot indefinitely laid-off staff in open up whole-time positions as they turn out to be accessible.

The corporation also is doing the job to establish other options to repurpose the Belvidere facility and has no extra particulars to share at this time.

The UAW, which signifies staff at the plant, also released a statement, and they are pretty mad:

“We are all deeply angered by Stellantis’ s final decision to idle the Belvidere Assembly plant without the need of a approach for potential item,” claims UAW Vice President and Director of the Stellantis Section Cindy Estrada. “There are quite a few car or truck platforms imported from other countries that could be constructed in Belvidere with talent and high quality by UAW users at Belvidere. The transition to electrification also results in prospects for new solution. Firms like Stellantis acquire billions in govt incentives to transition to clean energy. It is an insult to all taxpayers that they are not investing that income back again into our communities.”

“We imagine Stellantis is grossly misguided in idling this plant which has developed income for the organization considering the fact that 1965,” provides UAW President Ray Curry. “Not allocating new solution to crops like Belvidere is unacceptable. Saying the closure just a number of months from the holiday seasons is also a cruel disregard for the contributions of our associates from UAW Locals 1268 and 1761. We will combat again against this announcement.”

Some 1,350 staff operate at Belvidere, in accordance to a Stellantis spokeswoman, employees who are now presumably incredibly much concerned for their futures, a story that has performed out throughout the Midwest over and more than for many years now, as automakers have shuttered crops and still left at the rear of damaged communities in their wake.

It was as new as 2016 when Stellantis announced that it would be investing $350 million in the Belvidere plant to help make the Cherokee, however it is been just about almost nothing but undesirable news at any time given that for Belvidere, with waves of layoffs in the past couple of a long time, which includes earlier this calendar year. These came amid the identical kinds of provide chain complications each and every automaker has been working in latest many years, but they also arrived due to the fact revenue of the Cherokee have just cratered.

For now, Stellantis isn’t saying if Cherokee will exit along with the idling of the plant, but they are not just stating it won’t, either. The Stellantis spokeswoman said this about it for now:

We are not commenting on the potential of the Cherokee nameplate. This is an important vehicle in the lineup, and we continue being committed long term to this mid-dimensions SUV phase.