More bad economic news in Ontario

Two more auto parts are closing down in Ontario, with 2,300 jobs lost.

Link

For me personally, these events hit close to home. My daughter, who lives in the GTA and works in the manufacturing sector, was making 23$ an hour last year, when she was laid off. Her next job paid 17$ an hour, and she lost that one, too. Now all she can find is $14 an hour, and to make ends meet, she took a second, part-time job.

She considers moving out West, where there is plenty of well-paid work, but that means leaving behind friends and family. She asked me what to do, and honestly, I have no answers.

It's been the same where I live (N. Ontario), with the lost of forestry jobs. People are reeling from job losses and high energy costs.

One thing I do for a living is to plow roads in winter. I am being killed by gasoline prices (no matter what Mr. Dion says, it's hard to plow roads with a scooter), and yet, with so many of my customers in dire straits, I hesitate to raise my prices.

Is it only me who thinks we're on some race to the bottom? How can we stop it?

I was listening to the business report this am, and they were discussing how GM ia making moves toward manufacturing their mini car, forget the name, that they manufacture for India and SA, and how they may be moving production of it to the discontinued truck plants in ON. Has anyone else heard this?

I think Chevy's mini car is called the Beat, it's sold overseas (maybe made overseas as well) and their all electric car is the Volt. The Volt is supposed to go on sale here in 2010, I haven't heard anything about the Beat recently or that it will be made in Windsor, but maybe an announcement is coming soon?

BTW, the Smart car is a mini, and it meets all Canadian safety regulations, and I expect the Beat will, as well. I first saw the Smart in Liverpool not long after it was released, the Beatles museum in Liverpool brought one and painted the faces of John, Paul, George and Ringo on it from their Sgt. Pepper days, and it drives around the city as a promotional vehicle for the museum. I'd love a Smart, if I lived in a small city [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

With regard to the Chevy Volt, isn't electricity rather expensive? It has to be re-charged overnight, I'd hate to think what impact that would have on my hydro bill here. [img]eek.gif" border="0[/img]

quote:Originally posted by abnormal:
Chrysler bet it's future on the mini-van (that's what actually saved it from insolvency way back when) and full size mini-vans aren't in vogue to say the least.

Not to mention the K - car. Remember that one? My brother brought one, drove it for twelve years with few problems. Needed a paint job and tires after he was done with it, but was otherwise okay. There's a couple of smaller Chrysler front wheel drive cars here, each about 30 years old, both have been driven until a year or two ago. My main beef with all Chrysler front wheel drive cars is with their steering - absolutely numb, no road feel at all. I used to rent their mini vans when I travel out, simply because the rental agency didn't carry any other brands. I would have loved to sample the Honda or Mazda minivans.

The one car magazine I read online (Car and Driver) usually gives the Japanese products manufactured here better marks that the American brands - especially the Honda Accord, although the Chevy Malibu is a close second. I don't think any Chrysler products have made it to C&D's top ten list in quite a while, although I'd have to check.

There's no question American manufacturers have been slow on the uptake wrt to fuel economy. Ford was content to concentrate on building the F150 truck which has been the top selling big truck here for the last ten years, and a huge money maker for the company. It still sells especially to the oilpatch and to contractors, but it's a gas guzzler and sales are down this year, same as the big GM trucks. The Big Three were caught flat-footed by rising gas prices - look at their just released Chevy Camaro, Dodge Challenger, and revised Ford Mustang ponycars - who in their right mind will buy these things with gas prices still increasing?

Actually, what I meant by my previous post was that American manufacturers should have been concerned with fuel economy in every vehicle they build, and not just with their smaller vehicles. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler all build front wheel drive cars with good (not great) fuel economy. However, I feel that the Big Three should have, as long ago as the last major fuel crunch (the 1970s), been researching and producing high fuel economy vehicles throughout their entire range. If that had been the case, we would never had seen the Hummer, for example. But, the Big Three were greedy, and, to get around an increasingly high CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards, each of the Big Three built small, front wheel drive cars with actually quite good fuel economy to offset the very poor fuel economy of their bigger, more powerful vehicles (such as the F150). The CAFE standards were a joke, because all the Big Three had to was increase the fuel economy of their smallest vehicles, while at the same time increasing production of their oversized gas pigs (such as the F150 and Hummer). So, we do have some good fuel economy misers (such as the Chevy Cobalt and other small cars) available from the Big Three, but we could have had big trucks with better fuel economy if fuel economy had been legislated across the entire product range of the Big Three, instead of the pathetic CAFE standards that are in place.

Corporate Average Fuel Economy has been around a long time.

I did some googling and discovered changes have been made, and from the above link, found this:

excerpt:

The most recent revision of CAFE that passed in 2007 no longer grants exemptions to light trucks classified as SUVs or passenger vans unless they exceed 10,000 lbs GVWR (those that exceed 8,500 lb GVWR previously did not have to comply with CAFE standards); Pickup trucks and cargo vans are required to comply up to 8,500 lb. In 1999, over half a million vehicles exceeded the GVWR and the CAFE standard did not apply to them.[3] In 2011, the standard will change to include many larger vehicles. [4] The United States has the lowest average fuel economy among first world nations; the European Union and Japan have fuel economy standards about twice as high as the United States.[5]

ETA: CAFE made simple

[ 06 July 2008: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

The Omni was the name I was trying to remember. Probably the ugliest car - especially in gunboat gray - ever produced in North America. There's an old Plymouth Horizon (twin to the Omni) here that was parked for the last time just last year, although it probably could be on the road again with some minor repairs and a safety inspection. It's gray and ugly.

I think the Gremlin was a beauty.

You pay higher hydro bills, big business pays less

excerpt:

Big industries in Ontario shifted nearly a quarter of a billion dollars off their hydro bills in the first nine months of last year - onto the bills of households and small businesses.

And they may have collected tens of millions in additional payments by "double dipping" on overly generous conservation incentive programs.

That's the conclusion of the province's electricity market watchdog, the market surveillance panel.

ps:

1. no, I don't live in Ontario - this article piqued my curiousity, is all.

2. I don't know if this is the best thread for this article, didn't know where else to put it.

3. I didn't know there were any big industries left in Ontario.