With almost all carmakers heaping on the discounts to keep the U.S. auto market at a plateau, Subaru just notched its 63rd straight monthly sales gain, with minimal incentives to get customers in the door.
The Japan-based automaker is in the midst of a U.S. sales boom—and the company’s Lafayette auto plant is racing to keep up.
Subaru, a tiny, conservative Japanese brand that builds its automobiles in Indiana, is about to roll out a big, brash, American-style SUV. It’s a strategic risk for a company that has gotten in trouble before when its strays from its script.
Japan-based ELSA Corp., which already employs 350 workers in Elwood, is adding production lines to make fuel tanks, exhaust systems, air cleaners and air ducts for Subaru.
Moriden America makes cargo systems and interior trim for the auto industry and plans to ramp up production to meet demand from a Subaru assembly plant in Lafayette.
An Indiana auto assembly plant and economic development officials have turned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to find employees.
Indiana's business recruitment agency announced nearly $8 million of incentives last month for Subaru's planned major expansion of its Lafayette factory even though it will be months before the agency's board considers approving the deal.
Subaru of Indiana Automotive plans to spend $140.2 million to expand its plant in Lafayette and add as many as 1,200 workers before the end of 2017, the company announced Monday morning.
Subaru has announced plans to produce a new SUV in Lafayette that will be exclusive to the North American market.
Subaru, which employs thousands of workers in Indiana at its Lafayette plant, may sell more than 600,000 vehicles in North America in 2015, five years ahead of its mid-term plan.
The recall covers about 72,000 Outback, Legacy, Impreza and XV Crosstrek models with the company's Eyesight Driver Assist system.
Subaru, which has thousands of workers in Indiana, has never seen so much demand from car buyers. But making big moves to boost output could hurt the very thing that customers love about the automaker—its smaller size.
Factory workers gathered Monday to celebrate the first day of production on the 2015 model, which is among three Subaru vehicles built at the 3,600-worker plant.
Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., the maker of Subaru cars, will stop making Camry cars in the U.S. for its largest shareholder, Toyota Motor Corp., in the second half of 2016. About 100,000 Camrys are made annually at the Indiana plant.
U.S. car buyers came out of hibernation in April to spend on pickup trucks and SUVs, fueling an auto sales rebound that analysts expect to last the rest of the year.
Subaru, which added more U.S. market share than any international carmaker last year, is pushing ahead with U.S. expansion plans as it awaits a Toyota’s decision on whether it will keep building Camrys at Subaru’s Indiana plant.
Subaru is moving ahead with its plans for spending more than $400 million to expand and upgrade its Lafayette factory while significantly scaling back the expectations for new jobs.
Toyota remained the top-selling automaker for a second year in a row, beating U.S. rival General Motors by some 270,000 vehicles in 2013.
The Japanese manufacturer plans to stop building cars at the Subaru factory after the contract between the companies ends in 2016.
Heartland Automotive plans to spend $38 million on a factory expansion that could add up to 220 jobs in the next two years.
