MT Magazine November/December 2025

THE INDUSTRY OUTLOOK ISSUE

FEATURE STORY

14

Escape and Lincoln Corsair to producing a truck. The company has developed an entirely different way to build a vehicle: the Ford Universal EV Production System. Just as Ford pioneered the moving assembly line, the new process separates vehicle production into three major lines. The front and rear sections are based on large, single-piece aluminum castings. The assembly line for the last component, the structural battery, will include the carpeting, seats, and consoles. The three sections are then combined at a final station. Some predict that the impact of this change in Ford’s manufacturing process might be analogous to what Henry Ford started in 1913. Stellantis announced that it will invest $13 billion in U.S. manufacturing over the next four years – the largest investment in company history. This investment will reopen the Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois to build two Jeeps, produce a new midsize truck at the Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, build a new large SUV at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Michigan, and produce a new four-cylinder engine at its factories in Kokomo, Indiana. While those investments are nothing to sniff at, in March 2025, Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group announced a $21 billion investment in the United States between 2025 and 2028. In August, it added $5 billion, bringing the total to $26 billion. These monies will be spent on a steel mill; increasing its automotive production capacity at its two Hyundai plants in Alabama and Georgia and its Kia plant in Georgia; and the creation of a robot design, manufacturing, testing, and deployment facility with an annual capacity of 30,000 units. (Not only does Hyundai know something about robots because of the deployments in its plants, but it also owns Boston Dynamics, which makes the quadruped robot Spot and humanoid robot Atlas.) Here, an Ioniq 9 EV is being produced at the Hyundai Motor Group’s plant outside Savannah, Georgia. The company is investing $26 billion in the United States for manufacturing. (Image: Hyundai)

While Boeing is based in the United States and Airbus is headquartered in Europe, a trade agreement between the United States and the European Union reinstated zero tariffs on civil aircraft in September 2025, leveling the playing field between the competitors. In the first half of the year, Boeing’s commercial airplane orders experienced huge growth compared to the same period in 2024, with 668 gross orders versus 156. At Airbus, that number was 494, up from 327 in the first half of 2024. And while that’s good news for European manufacturing plants, it’s also good domestically – Airbus operates a plant in Mobile, Alabama, where it employs more than 2,000 people who produce the A220 and A320 families of aircraft. Bigger Numbers (Smaller Products) In the automotive sector, the numbers are bigger (although the vehicles are smaller – and significantly less expensive). Through the first three quarters of 2025, General Motors delivered 2,150,298 vehicles in the United States, a 10.3% increase over the 1,949,920 it delivered in the same period in 2024. At Ford, domestic sales totaled 1,658,908 vehicles, up 7.2% from the same period in 2024, when it delivered 1,548,172. But Stellantis North America, the third company of what used to be known as the “Big Three,” didn’t perform as well through Q3 2025 as the other two, delivering just 928,024 vehicles, a drop of 6% from the same period in 2024 (982,827 vehicles). While not all of these millions of vehicles were produced in the United States, a significant number were, and there will be more. Serious Money These companies are each making significant investments in their U.S. manufacturing operations. In a letter to GM’s shareholders, Chair and CEO Mary Barra announced a $4 billion investment over the next two years in manufacturing plants in Michigan, Kansas, and Tennessee. It captures the thinking of automotive leaders in the United States: “We believe the future of transportation will be driven by American innovation and manufacturing expertise.” Two weeks before this announcement, GM made another: It would invest $888 million at Tonawanda Propulsion for the production of sixth-generation GM V-8 engines. In June, Ford announced a $2 billion investment at its Louisville Assembly Plant to produce a midsize electric truck, which it expects to launch in 2027. Interestingly, this investment doesn’t just retool the plant from making the Ford