Ohio produces the most internal combustion engines in the U.S., making an adjustment to electric cars urgent. Nearly 90,000 people work for carmakers or parts suppliers, and several times that many are employed by businesses that serve those autoworkers.
Tony Totty, the president of the United Auto Workers local that represents G.M.’s workers in Toledo, Ohio on March 31, 2023.
Belmer is one of thousands of people who will also have to pick up new skills. “It’s going to be a little bit of a learning curve,” Belmer said at the Toledo factory. “But our guys are well equipped to handle this.” “This is the largest transition in our industry since its inception,” said Tony Totty, the president of a United Auto Workers local that represents GM workers in Toledo.Totty is optimistic about the members of his local. But he is worried about other colleagues whose jobs are tied to gasoline engines, he said.Warren, in eastern Ohio, knows what happens when a carmaker leaves town.
Foxconn, a Taiwanese manufacturer, has taken over the old GM plant and plans to produce electric vehicles and tractors there. The complex will also house an “electric vehicle academy” established by Foxconn and Youngstown State University to train workers. Executives at Foxconn, which has long assembled electronic devices but has little experience making cars, declined interview requests. It’s not clear when the company will mass-produce electric vehicles in Lordstown, if ever.
If anything, GM will need more workers, said Eric Gonzales, the executive director of the factory, as it replaces gasoline models with electric cars. “We’re taking the employees with us.” It’s cheaper and easier to build from scratch, said Scott Keogh, the CEO of Scout. “You’re not juggling this classic dynamic of a legacy internal combustion engine plant where you need to inject a new electric vehicle,” he said.
Ohio has some things going for it. In March, Honda Motor said it would convert one of two assembly lines at its decades-old plant in Marysville, near Columbus, to build electric vehicles. Honda, a Japanese company, is also building a battery factory about an hour away, in Jeffersonville, with LG Energy Solution.
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