Subaru's only factory outside of Asia is in Lafayette, Indiana, and it employs more than 6,000 workers.
The facility, which manufactures the automakers' Ascent, Outback, Legacy, and Impreza models, has been closed since mid-March. Its workers stopped receiving paychecks on April 13.
"Our factory in Indiana... is expected to be down through May 11th," Tom Doll, president and CEO of Subaru of America, told Cheddar Thursday. "The employees were actually furloughed, which means they're benefits are still being provided to them."
Doll doesn't believe the V-shaped economic recovery some economists have outlined will apply to the auto industry.
"I think it's gonna be a longer pushback because of the fact that people have been out of work for a while, so many layoffs have occurred," Doll said. "Before they're gonna make some type of large financial commitment for a car or a home, [people] are going to think about their job prospects and their income prospects."
In these times of quarantine, some car dealers have been successful in moving inventory off the lot, Doll said. Retailers are adapting to the situation by doing the financing upfront and delivering vehicles to customers' homes, making sure they understand how to operate them.
"I think retailers are very good at determining how best to operate in market situations like this," Dole said. "More and more retailers are doing things more online."
As production grinds to a halt, rumors have been swirling in Japan about Subaru's first all-electric vehicle. Reports say that the new SUV, made in partnership with Toyota, would be called the "Subaru Evoltis."
And it's more than just rumors. Subaru trademarked the name "Evoltis" in the U.S. two years ago. Doll couldn't give many details on the project, but did provide a prospective timeline.
"It's gonna be a great electric vehicle for us. Our first fully-electric vehicle," Doll said. "We're very excited about this new SUV that's coming in a couple years."
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
