Ford to make Fusion in US for first time

FLAT ROCK, Michigan (AP) — For the first time, Ford is making its Fusion sedan in the U.S.

The company’s Flat Rock, Michigan, plant began making the Fusion on Thursday. The plant, which is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Detroit, made the Ford Mustang sports car before getting a second shift of 1,400 workers to make the Fusion. The plant now has 3,100 workers.

Ford Motor Co. had been making around 250,000 Fusions each year at its plant in Hermosillo, Mexico. But that wasn’t keeping up with demand for the hot-selling midsize sedan, which was revamped last year. Sales this year are up 13 percent to 181,668 through July, making the Fusion one of the best-selling cars in the country.

“We could have sold more if we had more,” Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president of the Americas, told a cheering crowd of workers at the plant.

With the production at Flat Rock, Ford will be able to make 350,000 Fusions each year. Hinrichs said the cars being made Thursday would likely be sold within two weeks, a much faster rate than the 60-day average for the industry.

The Flat Rock plant was built by Mazda Motor Co. in 1987 and became a joint venture with Ford in 1992. When Ford and Mazda severed ties in 2010, the fate of the Flat Rock plant was uncertain.

“This very location was on the chopping block,” said Jimmy Settles, the chief Ford negotiator for the United Auto Workers union.

During contract talks with the UAW in 2011, Ford agreed to bring Fusion production to Flat Rock. While Ford will have to pay U.S. workers more compared with Mexico, where workers make $2 to $3 an hour, the wage difference isn’t as high as it once was.

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