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Normal plant adjusts autos to suit Asian, European customers
NORMAL -- Russians value the styling of their vehicle’s trunk interior, a lesson quickly learned by workers at the Mitsubishi Motors North America manufacturing plant in Normal. They like a sleek, carpeted trunk lid, an upgrade from the vehicles sold in the United States. “It was a showstopper,” said a surprised Thomas Spangler, general manager of logistics, planning, procurement and supply in Normal. So Mitsubishi gave it to them. It’s one of the many lessons plant employees have learned since boosting their exports last year. Mitsubishi has had to not only adapt to new government regulations, it’s had to adapt to the different ports From C1 tastes and habits of people in foreign lands. People in the Persian Gulf, for example, like cigarette lighters and ashtrays, features Mitsubishi no longer offers, said Jerry Berwanger, chief operating officer of the plant. They also leave their engines running while filling up the gas tank, so the air conditioning keeps running. When doing so, engine lights kept coming on, so Mitsubishi had to fix the issue. Mitsubishi now exports made-in-Normal vehicles to 16 countries in South America, Europe, Australia and the Persian Gulf. About 15 percent of the 100,000 vehicles produced at the plant each year are exported. In 2006, the company exported 15,494 vehicles. Through July this year, that number reached 9,885. It’s still a small part of the U.S. export industry, which shipped 2 million vehicles out of the country last year, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Aerospace and Automotive Industries. But Mitsubishi’s share could grow. While the company won’t discuss specifics, spokesman Dan Irvin said Mitsubishi is road-testing some made-in-Normal vehicles in more countries. “We’re going to produce vehicles for anybody and everybody that wants them,” he said. Ultimately, exporting more cars could help boost production at a plant that lost its second shift nearly three years ago. “It’s not like we’re doing this out of desperation,” Berwanger noted. “If we were running two shifts and building 230,000 cars, we’d still do this.” Talks of a second shift are far off, virtually nonexistent at this time. Right now, Mitsubishi is working out the kinks in its export business. Each country has its own regulations, with different safety requirements. Some countries, for example, don’t require side-curtain airbags, so Mitsubishi removed them to save money. “In the United States, safety regulations are much more stringent, so we found ourselves considering ways to eliminate some of these features to save money,” Spangler said. In other cases, though, Mitsubishi had to spend more. European countries require all vehicles to be equipped with a fire extinguisher and first-aid kit, for example. Russians don’t buy many cars without front and rear tow hooks because of all that snow. Russia also requires a full-size spare in the trunk. Vehicles in both Russia and the Persian Gulf require higher ground clearance because of variable road conditions. The extreme heat in the Persian Gulf requires heavy duty air conditioning, and the sand requires extra air filters. Manufacturing additional parts could have made exporting too expensive, but with Mitsubishi’s global reach, several sister plants in other countries were already making the parts needed, Berwanger said. E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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