Amid cost-cutting measures, Stellantis has decided to sell its Arizona proving grounds. The car manufacturer purchased the site from Ford back in 2007 and moving forward, is expected to use a proving ground owned by Toyota, also located in Arizona.
Stellantis’ Arizona Proving Grounds was purchased for $35 million. There’s no word on who’s going to buy the facilities, nor how much it will trade hands for. Nevertheless, the brand confirmed in a statement the sale will help it “improve efficiency.”
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“Stellantis continues to look for opportunities to improve efficiency and optimize its footprint to ensure future competitiveness in today’s rapidly changing global market,” the brand confirmed in a statement to CNBC.
The site employs 41 people, and 37 of them are hourly workers represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. The carmaker says it’s working with the union “to offer proving ground employees special packages” and that they could be transferred to another facility. It added that employees may also be placed on indefinite layoff “which would entitle them to pay and benefits for two years.”
Once the site is sold, Stellantis will use Toyota’s proving grounds in Arizona which have been open to other carmakers to use since 2021.
The future of the test facility has been under threat for quite some time. During tense contract negotiations with the UAW last year, Stellantis named the site as one of 18 facilities it could potentially close.
CNBC notes Stellantis reduced its headcount by 15.5% between December 2019 and the end of 2023 and that last December, had approximately 11,000 salaried employees in the US. This is significantly fewer than the 53,000 at GM and the 28,000 at Ford.
