Area Development
FCA USA will invest $1 billion to upgrade and modernize its assembly plants in Warren, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio. The automaker said its expansion projects will create 2,000 jobs.

According to company officials the “announcement is a continuation of the efforts already underway to increase production capacity in the U.S. on trucks and SUVs to match demand.”

“With the $1 billion investment, FCA US will retool and modernize the Warren Truck Assembly Plant (Michigan) to produce the all-new Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer, and the south plant of the Toledo Assembly Complex (Ohio) to build an all-new Jeep pickup truck. These actions are planned to be completed by 2020. More than 2,000 jobs also will be added to support production of these models. The added benefit of the investment in Warren is that it will enable the plant to produce the Ram heavy duty truck, which is currently produced in Mexico,” company officials said.

"The conversion of our industrial footprint completes this stage of our transformation as we respond to the shift in consumer tastes to trucks and SUVs, and as we continue to reinforce the U.S. as a global manufacturing hub for those vehicles at the heart of the SUV and truck market," said Sergio Marchionne, CEO of FCA N.V.

"These moves, which have been under discussion with Dennis Williams and the rest of the UAW leadership for some time, expand our capacity in these key segments, enabling us to meet growing demand here in the U.S., but more importantly to increase exports of our midsize and larger vehicles to international markets,” he added.

"The expansion of our Jeep lineup has been and continues to be the key pillar of our strategy. Our commitment to internationalize the Jeep brand is unwavering, and with these last moves, we will finally have the capacity to successfully penetrate markets other than the U.S. which have historically been denied product due to capacity constraints. In addition, these all new products will reach new consumers as well as those that have been part of the Jeep tradition," said Marchionne.

The actions announced today are subject to the negotiation and final approval of incentives by state and local entities, company officials said.

FCA, the seventh-largest automaker in the world based on total annual vehicle sales, is an international automotive group.