Automaker Stellantis will indefinitely idle an assembly plant in Illinois that employs around 1,350 workers, the company said, citing the challenge of rising costs related to the electric vehicle (EV) market and other factors.
The site, which will be idled beginning in February 2023, manufactures the Jeep Cherokee SUV. Stellantis, the parent company of Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep, said it might not resume operations at the site as it considers alternative options.
The industry “has been adversely affected by a multitude of factors like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the global microchip shortage, but the most impactful challenge is the increasing cost related to the electrification of the automotive market,” Stellantis said in a statement.
Tim Ferguson, shop chairman for United Auto Workers (UAW) union Local 1268, which represents the Illinois plant’s hourly workers, cited company documents to claim that Cherokee production is being shifted to Stellantis’s Toluca plant in Mexico and that the firm intends to close the Belvidere plant.
Amsterdam-based Stellantis insists that it’s looking at repurposing the Illinois facility but didn’t reveal any concrete plans. Cindy Estrada, vice president of UAW, criticized Stellantis for receiving “billions in government incentives” to transition to clean energy while failing to invest that money into “our communities.”
