http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/business/24auto.html?_r=1&hp

Nearly the End of the Line for S.U.V.’s

By NICK BUNKLEY and BILL VLASIC

JANESVILLE, Wis. — Even a federal bailout could not save three of the last remaining plants in the United States still making sport utility vehicles.

Reeling from its financial problems and a collapsing S.U.V. market, General Motors on Tuesday closed its factories in this city and in Moraine, Ohio, marking the passing of an era when big S.U.V.’s ruled the road. The moves followed the shutdown last Friday of Chrysler’s factory in Newark, Del., which produced full-size S.U.V.’s.

The last Chevrolet Tahoe rolled off the line here in Janesville shortly after 7 a.m. in the 90-year-old plant, which had built more than 3.7 million big S.U.V.’s since the early 1990s.

Most of the plant’s 1,100 remaining workers were not scheduled to work the final day, but many showed up for an emotional closing ceremony. Dan Doubleday, who had 22 years on the job, broke down in the plant’s snowy parking lot afterward.

“I was a fork lift driver,” he said, glancing at his watch through welling tears. “Until about seven minutes ago.”

At the Mocha Moment coffee shop around the corner, two co-workers, Michael Berberich and Lisa Gonzalez, exchanged Christmas presents just as they had most years since they were both hired in 1986.

“For a while we had it made,” Ms. Gonzalez said. “I just wish it would have lasted.”

The fate of the Janesville, Moraine, and Newark plants was sealed this spring, when rising gas prices suddenly made S.U.V.’s unpopular, and long before President Bush approved $17.4 billion in emergency loans last week to keep G.M. and Chrysler out of bankruptcy.

While the overall new vehicle market has dropped 16 percent so far this year, sales of big S.U.V.’s have plummeted 40 percent.

With consumers shifting rapidly to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, G.M. no longer needed to produce big S.U.V.’s in Janesville as well as in a plant in Texas.

Still, some Janesville workers felt G.M. broke a pledge in its 2007 contract with the United Automobile Workers to keep the factory running.

“We didn’t deserve this,” said John Dohner Jr., shop chairman at U.A.W. Local 95. “We’ve all put a lot of hard work into trying to secure a future here.”

Shrinking market shares have forced G.M., Chrysler and the Ford Motor Company to close more than a dozen assembly plants and shed tens of thousands of workers in recent years. The moves have devastated communities from Georgia to New Jersey and from Michigan to Oklahoma.

Even so, G.M. and Chrysler are likely to close more manufacturing facilities as they overhaul their operations to meet conditions of the federal loans.

“The companies are moving very fast now to close plants, but it may be too little, too late,” said John Casesa, a principal in the Casesa Shapiro Group, a consulting firm. “They’re doing now what they should have done 15 or 20 years ago.”

G.M.’s Moraine plant was the last to build the midsize Chevrolet Blazers and GMC Envoys that were once among the best-selling vehicles in the country.

The Janesville factory built three of the biggest and most profitable vehicles in G.M.’s lineup, the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban and GMC Yukon. The Chrysler plant in Newark also made big S.U.V.’s — the Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen.

Their closings leave the Big Three with only one factory each still devoted to making traditional big S.U.V.’s — Ford in Kentucky, G.M. in Texas, and Chrysler in Detroit.

The Janesville plant once employed more than 5,000 workers and turned out 20,000 Tahoes, Yukons and Suburbans each month. With its closing, residents worried about the future of this city of 64,000 people, about 75 miles southwest of Milwaukee.

“Janesville will lose a lot,” said Patti Homan, as she finished a strawberry-topped waffle at the nearby Eagle Inn restaurant. “I expect my electricity to go up, water rates to go up, property taxes to go up, and the value of my home to go down.”

Ms. Homan worked in the plant for 23 years, and her father, brother and husband all retired from the factory. “It’s generation after generation for so many families here,” she said.

The empty feelings in Janesville were echoed in Moraine, a suburb of Dayton and last week at the Chrysler plant in Newark.

More than 1,000 workers were laid off at the Moraine plant. Under terms of the U.A.W. contract for all its members, they and the workers in Janesville and Newark will collect unemployment checks and payments from G.M. that together equal about 80 percent of their take-home pay.

But those payments will only last about a year. And with the U.A.W. prepared to suspend its “jobs bank” program as a condition of the federal loans, there will be no safety net after that.

Some workers will have an opportunity to transfer to other plants. But with the industry contracting so quickly, there is little job security in making a move.

“I can’t risk transferring,” said David Williams, one of the remaining 1,100 workers at the Newark plant when it closed. “I don’t want to go 1,200 miles away to get laid off again.”

Mr. Williams installed a sunroof on the last Dodge Durango to come down the assembly line in Newark. Now he plans to take massage-therapy classes and pursue a new career far from the factory floor.

“Enough with the concrete,” he said. “It’s time for some carpet and climate control.”

On the last day for the Newark plant, 84-year-old Woody Bevans unlocked the weight room at the U.A.W. union hall and began brewing coffee for a handful of retirees who passed the time there.

A Texan who started work at the plant when it opened in 1952, Mr. Bevans recalled how the factory was first used to build tanks for the Korean War. He retired in 1983, but thought the plant would go on forever.

“We had hope right up until the last,” Mr. Bevans said. “We’re really going to feel it when it shuts down. There’s a big chain reaction, believe me.”

The University of Delaware is negotiating with Chrysler to buy the plant and redevelop the 270-acre site with academic buildings and a technology park.

After the plant closed, one of the workers, Merle Black, drove directly to a Delaware Department of Labor office and registered for job openings. He is hoping to become a heavy equipment operator, and possibly be involved in the demolition of the factory where he used to install airbag parts.

“If I can get in there to help take it apart, I don’t mind,” Mr. Black said. “That’s where I spent the last 19 years. That’s what I know.”

The closing of an auto plant draws a crowd, with some people somber and nostalgic and others defiant and energized.

Outside the Janesville plant on Tuesday, a few workers posed for pictures in front of the building while others said their goodbyes as they loaded gear in their snow-covered S.U.V.’s

One man had two small children with him on the last day. Another man wearing an orange ski mask waved a large American flag as departing workers drove by.

Many of the workers trudged over to a one-story, cinder-block building on the grounds of the factory, a bar called the Zoxx 411 Club. A sign said “customers only” and forbade reporters and media from entering.

Outside, a cluster of reporters, including a documentary film crew from Japan, tried to interview workers about the last days of the S.U.V. plant.

“It’s been a good ride, man,” said Frank Hereford, a body shop worker, as he left the plant with a microwave oven that heated up countless lunches during many of his 38 years with G.M. “Good people worked down here.”

Kind of good imo.  If you want a 4 wheel drive vehicle, drive a truck else get a car.

The Tahoe IS a Truck.

UAW did this to themselves....

GET YOUR PREBAN S.U.V.'s NOW !!11!111!!!

before it's too late.

SUVs will be around for a long time.

They are very useful vehicles for many.

Stupid article.

They'll be around used. Only a moronic CEO would further invest in producing those things.

Anyone old enough to remember the vans of the 1960s?  Shape wise, they're very much like a modern SUV except no 4 x 4, no rear passenger seats or doors.   This is before the big boxy vans took over in the '70s.

The unions are what drove the big 3 into the ground, not SUVs. Now they're playing the "poor me what will I do now" card.

Why, they will sell if gas is around $2 or less and they make more money than most other vehicles. Just because you dont like them does not mean they are not needed or should not be made.

I say the same thing about shitty little cars, stop making them.

Wow. That makes sense. I have a Ford Escape. Decent enough vehicle but my next one will be much smaller. An suv has very little more utility than a station wagon or mini van. Usually less.

They are still making them.

They just aren't making them where labor costs $89 hr for a forklift driver.

SUVs were where the profits were for the manufacturers until high fuel costs did them in.

See to me that makes no sense. I use a SUV to pick up a shit load of tool parts in the morning then reconfigure it to pick up 6 people from the airport in the afternoon and then to hual other shit around. I can not do that with any other car or station wagon, and those people I picked up sure the fuck are not going to get in a stationwagon or econ car. In the end the fuel economy is not that bad for what it is used for either.

^

This was me last week.

Sounds like those people need a limo, not an suv. Minivan will do the same thing and more. Those uppity 6 can take a cab.

The stupid is strong in this thread.  

1 in 20 people do what you do  ..  

most drive in circles at the mall alone.. looking for a spot thats two spaces closer then the 8 million empty spots .

the correct answer is go bankrup .. and do away with the UAW.

Why do you care what someone else drives?

Why does it matter to anyone who drives what? I don't give a shit what you drive. I don't need a reason to drive what I want. I also don't need permission from you or anybody else.
I have a Tahoe and a Corvette. If you don't like it I don't care. I choose to drive them because I like them. The Tahoe is good for me to take camping fishing shooting etc. I can load all my gear into it and still have room for passengers to ride in comfort without sitting on each others laps. It has 4wd so I can get onto the beach and do some surf fishing.

That whiny cow is finishing her strawberry waffle in a restaraunt...

What the hell is she doing eating out, she's losing her job!

I don't give a shit what any of you drive. Just giving reasons why I think they will stop producing them.

Apparently you do.

time to bring back the station wagon

them bitches were fun..


riding the in back fold up seat ..  

but wheres Uncle Sugar gonna get all his new black ESS EWE VEE's

Sounds to me like you do care what we drive and you're giving reasons why YOU think we shouldn't.

I'll be buying another within the next 3 months. Our 2 Tahoe's have been great vehicles.

This article has nothing at all to to with the UAW.  The big three were able to produce full size SUV's and make a heaping profit for years despite the high costs of the UAW.  What I can't grasp is the utter stupidity of all these people in the industry (workers *and* management) who "didn't see this coming" when the cost of a single gallon of gas went north of four bucks.  The handwriting has been on the wall here for a long, long time.

-Gator

NAFTA and GATT let us make things cheaper in Mexico, China and elsewhere.

It's been tried, they sell like turds on a hot day.

The Tahoe was probably one of the best SUVs on the market, I know of very few people who owned them that regretted buying them. Yeah, they got stupid priced at the end becuase of all the fru fru people wanted but they were no more useless then the 90% of pickup trucks that carried air the vast majority of the time.

Excellent towing vehicles for the typical boat and RV owner, few cars can tow much of anything anymore and FWD sucks with a bit of tongue weight.

Your reasoning fails.  

Quoted:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/business/24auto.html?_r=1&hp

Nearly the End of the Line for S.U.V.’s

By NICK BUNKLEY and BILL VLASIC

JANESVILLE, Wis. — Even a federal bailout could not save three of the last remaining plants in the United States still making sport utility vehicles.


Most of the plant’s 1,100 remaining workers were not scheduled to work the final day, but many showed up for an emotional closing ceremony. Dan Doubleday, who had 22 years on the job, broke down in the plant’s snowy parking lot afterward.

“I was a fork lift driver,” he said, glancing at his watch through welling tears. “Until about seven minutes ago.”

At the Mocha Moment coffee shop around the corner, two co-workers, Michael Berberich and Lisa Gonzalez, exchanged Christmas presents just as they had most years since they were both hired in 1986.

“For a while we had it made,” Ms. Gonzalez said. “I just wish it would have lasted.”


Still, some Janesville workers felt G.M. broke a pledge in its 2007 contract with the United Automobile Workers to keep the factory running.

“We didn’t deserve this,” said John Dohner Jr., shop chairman at U.A.W. Local 95. “We’ve all put a lot of hard work into trying to secure a future here.”


The empty feelings in Janesville were echoed in Moraine, a suburb of Dayton and last week at the Chrysler plant in Newark.

More than 1,000 workers were laid off at the Moraine plant. Under terms of the U.A.W. contract for all its members, they and the workers in Janesville and Newark will collect unemployment checks and payments from G.M. that together equal about 80 percent of their take-home pay.

“It’s been a good ride, man,” said Frank Hereford, a body shop worker, as he left the plant with a microwave oven that heated up countless lunches during many of his 38 years with G.M.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot ?

my mom's Chrysler Town & Country can haul 4x8 sheets of plywood, laying flat, out of the elements.  It is truly the most versatile vehicle going from that to seating 7.  My dad was always looking at picking up a truck, and using logic (and not "manliness") realized his wifes minivan was da shit.

The only advantage of an SUV is if it has 4WD, which i expect handles better than a truck b/c the rear end isn't as light (could be wrong, dont have either).  And you sit higher, weigh more, and have better outcomes in car accidents(SUV & truck both)

Good riddance, suv = repackaged over glamorized station wagon.

Doesn't GM still have SUV plants in Mexico and Canada?

When you find me a mini-van or station wagon that will carry the 6 people in my family, 2 dogs, clothes, cribs, food, and anything else we need for a week or two, while pulling a travel trailer let me know.  Until then I'll keep my Suburban.

All of my SUV's come from England

I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee................best vehical I ever had for deep snow and getting around up here in the mountains of NH....all you flat landers can suck my Cherokee tail pipe!!!

It's the cost of the fucking things that are killing sales!!!..................I wonder why they cost so much!!!!

I don't need a truck and a light SUV is perfect for my use.  I get sick of people who have some deep seated desire to decide for everyone else what they should buy and use.  It gets old.  

That said, lots of people were buying them for no other reason than status, and I expect that will or has already come to a screeching halt.

I have an Expedition and it does far more then that.  I can take 9-people, tow 6,000-pounds, I can carry 4x8 sheets of plywood, and yes it has a truck suspension so I can drive in places that a minivan will just not survive.  

The expedition for us is a 3rd veichle so it does not get drove a whole lot in the summer or in good weather but when I go hunting or we take a trip skiing or in nasty weather, or when I need to pull a trailer the Expedition does it all.

I would like a short bed crew cab truck but back when I bought the expedition there were not may Crew Cab pickup options with the 6-foot bed and frankly the Expedition can carry things a 6-ft pickup can't with the seats folded.

I don't expect full sized SUVs are going away, we may just need to accept the only choiced we will have are Toyota or Honda made ones soon

You don't need one, so nobody does, right?

stupid fucking post ...

people said the EXACT same thing during the gas "shortage" in the 70's

Yeah, sure it is.  It's an overweight, oversized, jacked minivan.  

It's about time that soccer moms stopped driving these dinosaurs.

No, LOTS of stupid fucking posts.

we have two tahoes in the driveway
its been snowing here and i have pulled two of your little Escapes out of the snow banks ,NOT EVEN DITCHES
i use mine to cart around two kids and two saint bernards. i use mine to trailer
they will still be made so tell me why i don't need a tahoe.

anyone that thinks they are useless must be braindead
my next vehicle will be a crewvcab truck with cap on top (if my tahoes ever die)

they make em in texas still, thats where mine was from.

yes bankruptcy is a good idea. less costs helps profits.
continuing education is also a great thing after high school(for all the factory workers that no longer have a job), most have worked there since they got out of HS.


my two cents

+1

The article should say the end of the line for the American made SUV.  I will always need and drive a large SUV.  I need to carry the people and I need the space to carry stuff when not carrying people.  There are times I need the four wheel drive.  

And remember, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Land Rover and Nissan all make large SUV's that will fill the market.  

And one final point, I read a recent detailed article that said if you broke the American car industry into two parts, one part is very profitable and one is not.  The profitable one being the truck and SUV portion.  The unprofitable one being the car portion.  For various regulatory reasons they can not concentrate on doing what they do right (trucks and SUV's) and ignore what they do wrong (cars).  

Oh, and the fact that a plant is shutting down now, during this credit crunch, is not sign of a problem with SUV.  I and several of my friends would all buy new large SUV's by the end of the tax year except for the credit crunch and possible bk filing of the GM.

Who are you to tell them what they should be driving?

???

My 01 Tahoe has a perfect wheelbase and weight for getting around in the snow/bad weather and it can tow a trailer much bigger then a bed of a truck.

It has an almost 300 hp V8, the tranny has a "tow" option, solid rear axle, how the living fock is it NOT a truck cause I sure as hell use it like one.