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2017 – 2019
The sale: On 22 June 2017 AM General announced the sale of the Commercial Assembly Plant to SF Motors — SF Global, a subsidiary of the Shanghai-listed Chongqing Sokon Industry Group, with its headquarters in Silicon Valley. The South Bend Tribune, working from public filings, put the price at $110 million, with a further $30 million in key upgrades; the plant was described there as 700,000 square feet (the third figure carried for the building, after 673,000 and 675,000), sitting between McKinley Highway and Jefferson Boulevard west of Bittersweet Road. The sale closed on 2 November 2017. What it accomplished, before any vehicle was contemplated, was the preservation of about 430 jobs, including 368 union jobs — the workforce that had built Hummers and Mercedes-Benz in the building.
The announcements: SF Motors planned to retool over one to two years and build "intelligent" electric vehicles. On 30 May 2018, with Governor Eric Holcomb attending at the plant, the company announced a $160 million investment and two electric SUV models, the SF5 and SF7, prototypes of which were shown. In July 2019 chief executive James Taylor announced layoffs — about thirty of the plant's eighty-one remaining workers, on the detailed account — and put United States development of the SF5 on hold, citing the weakening Chinese auto market and the United States–China trade conflict.
Accomplished, stated plainly: No production vehicle was ever built at Mishawaka under SF Motors. The South Bend record's sentence is the shortest form of it: no vehicles ever rolled off the floor under SF Motors. Everything else in this entry — the investment, the models, the retooling — stands as announced, which is how it is printed. The plant itself passed on, as the next entry records.
Sources:
- South Bend Tribune, June 2017 — the sale announcement, the $110 million price and $30 million upgrades per public filings, the 700,000-square-foot description, the plant's siting.
- Transaction record — the closing of 2 November 2017; the approximately 430 jobs preserved, 368 of them union.
- Company and state announcements, 30 May 2018 — the $160 million investment and SF5/SF7 announcements; contemporary reporting, July 2019 — the layoffs and the SF5 hold.