Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Tuesday, Oct. 7.
The devastating fire in September at an aluminum sheet plant owned by Novelis Inc. in Oswego, N.Y., threatens to disrupt production at Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and eight other automakers.
For Ford, it's a huge setback for the company's aggressive move in 2014 to use aluminum body parts in the F-150 pickup. No supplier championed this move publicly more than Novelis.
And a key player in this effort was a former Ford executive who joined Novelis as COO in 2007 and became CEO in 2009: Phil Martens.
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Martens spent 18 years at Ford. At age 34, he was named chief engineer for the Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car. At age 42, he was named Ford product development chief but left the company in 2005 amid various management changes. Later, by many accounts, Martens thrived at the helm of Novelis, yet he was suddenly ousted in April 2015.
Ford and other automakers are now scrambling to find other sources of aluminum while Novelis hopes to restart operations in Oswego in the first quarter of 2026.
"Novelis is one of several aluminum suppliers to Ford," the automaker said in a statement on Oct. 6. "Since the fire nearly three weeks ago, Ford has been working closely with Novelis, and a full team is dedicated to addressing the situation and exploring all possible alternatives to minimize any potential disruptions."
The Wall Street Journal reported that Ford is likely to report the potential cost of the disruption in its third-quarter earnings report.
Toyota is also working on the issue. "Our supply-chain team has been all over this," a Toyota spokesman told the Journal. "We're in pretty good shape, but not completely out of the woods."
Other automotive customers listed by Novelis include Stellantis, Hyundai Motor Co., BMW Group, Mercedes-Benz, the Renault-Nissan alliance, Volkswagen and Volvo.
Another Novelis automotive customer of note: JLR, which is restarting production in the U.K. after a six-week cyberattack disruption.
In other news, we took a close look at century-old car dealerships in this report. As Automotive News celebrates its 100-year anniversary, we are writing special stories to commemorate our own milestone and looking closer at how the auto industry has grown and evolved.
That's it for today. If you want to view this story in your browser, click here.
— Philip Nussel, online editor
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