Ford will invest $135 million in Michigan plants

By Tom Krisher, AP Auto Writer

DETROIT — Two Ford Motor(F) factories near Detroit will see 170 additional jobs in the next two years as the automaker brings battery pack and gas-electric hybrid transmission assembly to the United States.
The company said Monday it will create a "center of excellence" for electric vehicle development in the Detroit area. The company intends to add more than 50 engineers to work on the next generation of electric vehicles.

Ford said it will invest $135 million by 2012 at factories in Ypsilanti Township and Sterling Heights, Mich., to design, engineer and produce components for its next generation of hybrids and fully electric vehicles.

Currently a supplier makes complex hybrid transmissions for Ford in Japan, while battery packs are assembled in Mexico, the company said.

Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, said further job growth and investment depends on acceptance of electric vehicles in the marketplace. Ford plans to sell five electric or hybrid vehicles in the United States by 2012 and in Europe by 2013. It currently offers four hybrid models.

"The good news is we're making the investment now, it's going to result in obviously driving innovation, driving job growth," Fields said. "We'll see where we go from there."

The Ypsilanti factory, which now makes auto parts, will get $10 million of investment to build battery packs, creating about 40 new jobs. The packs are now assembled in Mexico. Ford will get its advanced lithium-ion battery cells from a parts supplier that it would not identify.

The Sterling Heights transmission factory will get a $125 million investment and 130 new jobs to build hybrid transmissions now built in Japan.

Fields said Ford was able to bring the jobs to the United States because of cooperation with the United Auto Workers on wages and productivity. The company and the union, he said, agreed on how to do the work so the business case made sense.

UAW Vice President Bob King, who has been nominated to become the union's president, said the cooperation was essential to bringing jobs that Ford, which is based in Dearborn, Mich., could have kept in other countries. The company's decision also creates the potential for more work, he said.

"This is an area that will expand and grow, especially the batteries," he said.

Under the terms of its UAW contract, Ford will be able to pay the new workers around $14 a hour, about half the hourly wage it pays existing workers.

Before hiring new workers, the automaker will have to recall about 450 laid-off workers nationwide, but it expects to do that well before the Ypsilanti and Sterling Heights jobs are filled.

The news follows Friday's announcement that Chrysler will add nearly 1,100 new jobs at a Detroit plant that makes the new Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 14%.

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