Stellantis To Cut 400 Additional Jobs At The Jeep® Cherokee Plant In Illinois!

Stellantis To Cut 400 Additional Jobs At The Jeep® Cherokee Plant In Illinois!​

Plant Has Loss 122,000 Units This Year Because Of Semiconductor Shortage...​

On Friday, it was announced that Stellantis will cut another 400 additional jobs at the company’s Belvidere Assembly Plant in Belvidere, Illinois. The plant manufacturers the midsized Jeep® Cherokee (KL), which has been a lackluster seller for the American adventure brand since its mid-cycle-action (MCA) in 2019. The layoffs could take place as soon as Friday, January 14th.

Stellantis To Cut 400 Additional Jobs At The Jeep® Cherokee Plant In Illinois!

On Friday, it was announced that Stellantis will cut another 400 additional jobs at the company's Belvidere Assembly Plant in Belvidere, Illinois. The plant manufacturers the midsized Jeep® Cherokee (KL), which has been a lackluster seller for the American adventure brand since its...

moparinsiders.com

 

[bill burke]

Lackluster is an overstatement in my book, but there is little doubt the Cherokee has had sales taken by the all too similar Compass and that spinning off a shortened Grand Cherokee derivative in RWD configuration, wider and longer, more spacious and capable is a necessity. The semi-conductor shortage has not helped either. What new product do you envision for this factory, do you know something we don’t or can’t know? This facility can be filled with something new if the Cherokee is shifted to the GC assembly line, like a Chrysler vehicle or two I pray. Building it along side the GC is logistically very possible I must note.
The current Cherokee is a fine SUV, but lost in the Jeep mix and left shortchanged by a platform that needs more and better to stand out from the competition both outside and inside the Jeep marketplace. Lackluster, not when you look close at my argument. Make Cherokee a truer Jeep, a better Jeep, a distinctive Jeep and the market leader that should and frankly must never be called “lackluster” again. Never from a Jeep, certainly.

 

[patfromigh]

The FCA manufacturing facilities in Brazil run at full capacity producing products which are a good fit for Latin America. The vehicles built there are on an A-segment mini platform and the B to C sized SUSW platform. The wide variety of vehicles built on the smaller platform is amazing. Sedans, hatchbacks, pickups and vans. While these particular models are not suitable for our market due to their size, I must scratch my head and wonder why such a doctrine wasn't spelled out for North America using a larger platform. No Stellantis doesn't need to chase the Asian brands to cover every market segment by selling cars with questionable profitability, but a product such as the Toro pickup and a wagon based on it might be winners. Shouldn't Belvidere be humming like Betim in Brazil? I understand there is a pandemic, a chip shortage and the supply chain has snapped. So maybe under better condition more Cherokees would be selling.

The Cherokee has another problem. It was king for a day. It was a superior vehicle to the RAV4 on the day it was introduced. While the customers were unwitting guinea pigs as the brand was trouble shooting the nine speed automatic, Toyota came out with the new generation of RAV4, easily leap frogging the Jeep Cherokee. Toyota sells more of the hybrid RAV4 than the entire Jeep Cherokee model range total sales.