





Jim Tetreault
Jim Tetreaulter, Ford's North American manufacturing chief




Jim Tetreault
Mr. Tetreautler motions over a finished hybrid motor.





Finished small engine
Space-age plastics cuts the weight of the hybrid transmission while
maintaining rigidity and mechanical integrity.



Mayor Richard Notte
Sterling Heights Mayor Richard Notte



Finished Assembly
A finished transmission assembly, with the engine.





Engine gear close-up
Gears gleam under the bright lights on the plant floor.


Valve closeup
Valves tower over a finished engine/transmission assembly.



Engineer w blocks
Ford engineer Donald Iaquinta shows off transmission blocks.






Hybrid stators


Hybrid rotors
Rotors with pumps to maintain line pressure.



RTV robot
The RTV robot applies liquid gaskets.


Kitted Parts
Kits are key to fast switches between the two transmission types.



Line Worker
A line worker applies parts to an in-progress transmission.




Sources: Ford [1], [2]

Comments     Threshold


RE: They are completely right.
By Reclaimer77 on 8/6/2012 8:07:25 PM , Rating: 1
Oh the trend clearly started a long time ago, but despite the rhetoric about "investing in America" bla bla bla, his highness and his cronies have the opposite in mind.

It's not just America that has this trend. To oversimplify things, the bigger the Government the more it squeezes on private industry.

I came across this when reading about the Raspberry Pi and thought it was interesting:


So we have had to make the pragmatic decision and look to Taiwan and China for our manufacturing"

I love the idea that Americans are supposed to be patriotic. I truly do. I'm wondering when corporations (who are supposed to be people) will start behaving like they love this country too.

How does patriotism have anything to do with this? Don't try to make this some emotional issue, that's cheap.

If you want less outsourcing, it's really simple, cut taxes, cut the red tape, cut the bullcrap environmental penalties and pay-for-play scams, and just let businesses do business.

RE: They are completely right.
By JasonMick (blog) on 8/6/2012 9:20:49 PM , Rating: 2

I agree to some extent in that there should be a flat tax for businesses and on personal income.

But modifying payroll taxes cannot help if the untaxed cost of labor is "too expensive" in a company's eyes compared to foreign alternatives.

For example if Apple can make an iPad in China for $0.50 (cost of labor), and it would cost $6 to make here + $1.50 payroll taxes, even if the payroll taxes were completely eliminated , at $6 it would still be "too expensive" to manufacture domestically .

Two key factors in this problem are:
1. Certain nations like China manipulate their currency to make their cost of labor "cheaper". The U.S. gov't does nothing to combat this, virtually. In fact, in many cases it rewards the manipulators via a variety of mechanisms
2. Companies fail to see peripheral costs of outsourcing -- e.g. stolen intellectual property (cough, China), etc.

RE: They are completely right.
By superstition on 8/6/12, Rating: 0
RE: They are completely right.
Ok if conservatives are "plutocrats" then liberals are Fascists.

RE: They are completely right.
Way to avoid the important point of the post:





RE: They are completely right.
By nolisi on 8/6/2012 11:34:42 PM , Rating: 2

Fine, then please respond to the very legitimate points regarding stolen IP and drop in service issues that I brought up. It's the price Americans are forced to pay if the entire supply side of the *Amercan* market offshores.

Ignoring them is a cheap. ;)

Besides that, I'll stop using patriotism when American business stops using patriotism to invoke people. I figure if they can use it to invoke people to purchase products built by underpaid (by American standards, cuz they are American companies) labor, then I think I should be allowed to use it in an argument.

Here's a creative solution, executives should be paid in the same proportion to what offshore labor is compared to American labor.

Yeah, capitalism doesn't like consistency.

By Reclaimer77 on 8/7/2012 10:27:24 AM , Rating: 2

Because it's a non-issue. It's one of those argumentative talking points that sounds good, then falls apart when you apply logic to it. Stealing IP and ideas, hell even stealing military secrets from us, didn't start with Corporate outsourcing. Using someone elses example of the iPad, how did outsourcing increase someone's ability to reverse-engineer one? Anyone could buy one, break it down, and learn it's secrets.

As for your other parts, all straw men designed to make capitalism and the free market the bad guy, instead of having the courage to tackle the root causes.


Idiot. Executives should be paid what their employers decide to pay them. I'm sure you wouldn't like someone telling you what you "should" be getting paid, and placing artificial limits on your earning potential. By like a typical class-warfaring leftists, you see no problem doing this to the "rich". Not to mention this entire premise is beyond idiotic. Paying people in America proportional to what the workers in other countries get paid? What? Why? Did this really sound like a good idea to you?

RE: They are completely right.
By StanO360 on 8/16/2012 5:36:15 PM , Rating: 2
Companies should pay their executives exactly what the Board and stockholders believe he/she is worth.

