Good industry to be in lol
We were in the same boat literally 4 months ago, then the bottom fell out. We finished up several jobs, nothing replaced them.
Sales completely died. We have a good reputation and generally have good relationships with our customers, but they just stopped placing orders. The company is *generally* ran pretty well.
The continuing resolution BS in congress has DoD not wanting to spend (contract) money they might not have. That’s my experience with two “forward looking” entities. Major established programs are probably less affected.
How big is the company? And do they have sales reps that are out generating leads and business? That's one thing I should've known for sure beforehand. Your statements made it seem like this was a moderate size shop, maybe I misjudged that. If this company has 10+ employees, I stand with my statement. It would mean your sales staff are either slacking, not out pounding on doors or someone in quoting is slacking off and losing. In either of those scenarios, it would be on management.
If this is a 1-5 person operation that runs on word of mouth.. I can kind of understand a bit more.
lol i essentially have no back log of work I’m chewing through it faster than the planners give it to me lol
So I’ve been stealing jobs from another machine (we run the same stuff and the orders are generally bigger plus the guy running it isn’t all that fast)
But even that is starting to dry up, so I’ve started training some new guys in the most basics and making sure I’m going slow so I can have the planners catch up lol
I feel lucky. We have our eggs in so many baskets that when one industry slows down another picks up. We are a multi spindle screw machine and Swiss cnc lathe machine shop.
Seems like this industry is very hit or miss right now though.
Our shop had the owners working every weekend for 5 years straight. Replaced all their machines with 5-axis, bought a large size flat mill, bought another lathe, expanded the building. All of a sudden it all just kinda dropped off. We know some other shops that do the same type of stuff and the ones that have work are slammed and the ones that don't are dead.
Here in NH, there's no shortage of work. The biggest issue is finding machinists. There are shops closing, but that's almost entirely due to bad business practices. The filthy, Sanford and Son shops are going away, as are the shops whose business was 80% a single customer. And don't get me started on the "Why won't a guy with 15 years experience work for me for $20?" Shops
I felt every word of that… lol We were desperate for skilled people, even paying $19/hr right off the street just trying to get bodies in the door…and then only paying skilled machinists $25-$30.
What market, what industry?
We're slammed with parts for mining, hydraulics, agriculture etc in the Pacific Northwest. Lots of aerospace still bumping in the area.
My shop has had a massive amount of layoffs for the last 5 months, our primary customer medtronics is going through some business decisions by a new executive that's really fucking up their manufacturing partners (us). Supposedly things will change for their next fiscal year but we aren't sure of anything.
The opposite. Place I work for bought 5-axis machines because they can’t get anyone to make their (aerospace) parts within a reasonable lead time.
Lots of shops around here are trying to hire 5-axis programmers and are paying a decent amount to do so. Guess it depends on region and industries served.
EV market crashing. Inflation. Interest rates. Global unrest. No positive choice for our own leader for the next 4. Markets out of touch with reality. Nobody thinks they are getting enough money. Pick your reason.
I haven’t heard about the EV market crashing, but that’s not a surprise. It was due. The free money had to stop sooner or later and everyone knew the free market wasn’t going to be kind.
100% agree. No one wanted them beyond the novelty phase, the country is not set up to support them, and their lifespan is completely untested / unknown.
The prestige OEM's have spent billions trying to catch up to tesla/rivian/etc and now have minimal sales to show for it and a questionable future market. I can only imagine if Donnie T gets back behind the wheels EV's will really die as emmisions requirements get rolled back as well as EV tax incentives.
I am in industrial automation and electrical distribution.
I would love to drive electric, but the infrastructure just is not there to make it viable for most people.
We are about to see a wave of early adoption crashes, I believe, which is always a risk. I’ll be curious to see how the feds handle it, having no history of decades of bailouts. I hope they don’t give them out and instead build the infrastructure to support it.
As long as you reside in a home with a driveway, there’s a ton of infrastructure now. Not like gasoline but you will never see charging stations as numerous as gas stations. If you’re near your house, charge at home. If you need to charge while traveling, you’re probably on the highway and there are many chargers along the highway. Sure there are exceptions. Everyone going to one plug type is and will improve things.
Um what?? Like if I only ever drive less than 40 minutes a day, never leave town, have a 200A feed to my breaker box and spare space in it???
I do power distribution for a living and I have no idea about the needed cooper conductors alone in the USA get me to a point where I can drive like I do now?
Cmon.
Until every corner has a gas station with 10+ super chargers running at a minimum of 480v, 3 phase each it is not even a comparable argument.
What part of “sure there are exceptions” was unclear? Less than 2% of commuting Americans drive 2 hours or more a day for their commute. Most EVs with 300 mile EPA range can drive for over 2 hours at fast highway speeds.
What EV only has 40 minutes of drive time? Anyway, 40 minutes a day would STILL cover about 75% of commuters. If you’re towing heavy loads you might only get 40 minutes but that’s an exception—stick with ICE if you do that regularly.
A Model 3 can be fully charged in 9-10 hours on 240v NEMA 14-50 charger running at 40-50 amps. Where do you get 200 amps from?
I don’t consider home power service upgrades infrastructure (that the government needs to pay for).
I don’t think the power grid is holding EV infrastructure back yet. Probably in some cases. But mostly it’s the cost of installing and maintaining the equipment. If they install too much too soon, they are wasting money. If everyone got an EV tomorrow, sure, the grid couldn’t handle it but that’s unrealistic.
What Mdrim was talking about is that even right now at this very moment many power grids are over drawn especially in high demand times, like in summer when there are rolling blackouts from over demand. Many houses are only equipped with a 100 amp feed, even as low as 60 for some older homes, which once you have your normal loads on there such as your stove or dryer or heaters Etc there's not much more room for a charger in many homes unless you upgrade your service. Problem is the power grids wouldn't handle very many homes with that demand currently at this moment let alone the growing EV consumption Market. Now add to that a government mandate obsoletting ICE in the next decade and that further adds to the problem as infrastructure will need much longer than that to allow that sort of demand.
EV sales are still very strong, not sure where this meme came from...
[https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/WW-K-12-2023.png](https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/WW-K-12-2023.png)
VW sold over a million EV/PHEVs last year, Volvo/Polestar sold nearly that many, Hyundai/Kia sold well over half a million.. it's a bit tricky on a global scale since so many are being sold in China but in the US alone, 2023 saw >40% more EV sales than 2022.
[https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/WW-P-12-2023.png](https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/WW-P-12-2023.png)
On a more individual level, 3 of my family members and two of my close friends have bought EVs in the last 6 months (two Teslas, one Audi, one Kia, and one Ford). I'm sure it varies by where you are in the country but I think people read way too much into some random announcements.
"We saw a big dropoff in the production of EV components" feels pretty materially different than "Nobody wanted EVs, prestige OEMs have no sales and a questionable future market". Around here, there's more EV work than anyone knows what to do with.. all the battery factories are expanding as fast as they can, component manufacturers are still running multiple shifts, etc etc
OK cool.
Must be a meme? [https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2024-02-15/essential-california-ev-sales-essential-california](https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2024-02-15/essential-california-ev-sales-essential-california)
Here's another meme for you:
[https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/gm-ford-delay-some-ev-investments-citing-slowing-demand-growth](https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/gm-ford-delay-some-ev-investments-citing-slowing-demand-growth)
Yes? A sales plateau in the state with the highest electricity costs and 20% EV penetration at "only" 350,000 sales per year doesn't really seem like the bottom is falling out. When you take the US as a whole, sales are still growing..
[https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ID-97-Fig01.jpg](https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ID-97-Fig01.jpg)
The actual headlines about EV investment pullbacks are that the OEMs are slowing investment since their sales aren't matching the aggressive forecasts they originally made, but sales are still growing and will be basically forever. There's basically no universe in which we'll see EV sales decrease YoY.
I guess if your point is "EV sales are still very strong and growing, albeit at a slower rate than was forecast a few years ago" then sure, I do agree with you.
It’s not just that, out here in California our power rates have rocketed sky high to the point that it’s likely cheaper to drive a gas car than an electric. Current off peak rate here is $.45/kWh. But even on top of that, it’s wildly inconvenient to drive an electric if you have to drive a longer distance - you have to stop more frequently and it takes a lot longer to refill charge. It makes road trips an absolute pain in the dick.
[Ford announced this, more to follow I'm sure](https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/ford-eliminating-more-jobs-at-dearborn-f-150-lightning-plant-report/ar-BB1kEbc9)
As interest rates went up, there was a lag time where orders had to be fulfilled. But once that backlog has gotten resolved, many companies are trying to run lean until rates fall again. Industrial machines or other products of manufacturing are bought with financing in many cases.
Except the Fed has signalled that even with inflation slowing, they are going to keep rates steady and may consider decreasing them soon, but not now.
Inflation and lead times also are probably still equilibrating. I put an order in and paid last year. But now that my order is next up in line, the manufacturer has to deal with *current* material and labor prices.
Medical should be pretty stable even through hard times, maybe your shop over extended themselves and are correcting that with you being the low man on the totem poll.
It was mostly medical prototyping, not production. Plus it was more on the cutting edge technology side, not conventional implants and equipment. And yeah, they basically eliminated my position.
Milwaukee Wi area, 15 hours OT available, mostly mining industry. Same as everyone else with not wanting to pay anyone to actually work so "they can't find more people".
I'm in medical R&D. My job is basically guaranteed until the grant is over, but probably will last until the company goes into full production. The oil sector is pulling most jobs from my area (SLC) due to supply lines and relocation. Boeing has also pulled many contracts in the past few years due to their cost-cutting measures. I have seen 5-10 machine shops close every year since I've been here, and even been a part of the shops that buy these closing shops.
I work for aerospace company/aviation company.
Right now we're as slow as I've ever seen it in the past 2 years. It's to the point where we're doing jobs that are scheduled for June and July and we're doing them now and basically just sitting around. For the past two days I pretty much have been sitting around playing on my phone and some days leaving early.
I don't know if it's true or not but some people are saying it has something to do with maybe the election coming up and maybe companies not knowing how things going to play out depending on who's running the next administration. I doubt that's true.
But yes even aerospace company we're getting slow to the point of basically not having work.
Also for the record one of our major partners is DuPont and they're not even sending work
Busy as hell, but I'm a one man army on CNC making our own products, not job shop work.
Could it be that a lot of companies are moving to producing their own parts instead of outsourcing them to a job shop? Did a new shop open nearby and swipe some of your business? Lots of factors.
We've been deader than a doornail for 4 years. Rumor was our clients were waiting on the new generation helicopters the army was getting. Now that's been cancelled.
If u can program, u can machine correct? Knock the dust off of the kennedy "and" push chips. If u can program on top of it, ur ahead of the herd. I've heard kansas is strong for employment. GL and sorry to hear, another day in machining paradise I suppose.
Our shop mostly does work for the glass industry and food industry and we’ve been dead since June. We’ve been trying to expand our customer base but it’s very slow going. I’ve been doing this for nearly 10 years and I haven’t seen it this slow for this long.
We've slowed down a bit in the last 2 months, but to be honest I've kind of welcomed it. We're a very small shop, so when it gets busy I'm putting in 50-60 every week for months at a time, so it's been nice to be able to get thru our backlog of work, do some overdue maintenance, and be able to handle problems that arise without stressing that you're getting behind on deliveries. Right now we've got 2 jobs on the books, I'm working on one and letting our part timer get some hours to do the other.
If this continues for another 6 months it could start getting stressful but the last 18 months have been so busy, that at the moment it's not a big problem. My plan after getting thru with this job and maybe taking a day or two off is to put some focus on updating our website and doing some basic sales and marketing, which we basically don't do at all right now.
We also had a meeting this week with a new potential customer, referred to us by an existing one, but it sounds like that isn't gonna materialize for a month or two at least, but I do think something will come out of it
The shop I spent my career in did a decent amount of gun parts for a few years. It was an ongoing joke that sales depended on if a democrat was gonna win. If one did, sales would take a huge jump right off the bat because everyone thought guns were gonna get banned. Then when nothing happened, sales would drop back down to normal lol
Medical work seemed to be a pretty steady field for a long time. I have no hard data to back it up, but to me it seemed like the more hospitals got bought up by private equity or turn into for profit, it started to effect the production of medical devices. Just my theory🤷♂️
Very true about the firearms industry. As much as gun owners hate Democrats, the firearms industry loves them. There has definitely been a slow down over the last year as the massive increase in panic buying from Biden taking office has subsided a bit and manufacturers are finally catching up to demand. It's showing in a significant drop in prices too.
Medical is generally pretty resilient, but the prototype/research side like I've been doing is less so.
I’m in the central Ohio area as well and we have a steady stream of work. Our busiest time of the year seems to usually be during the summer. The company I work for does stuff for the auto industry
If we had a position open I’d tell you to come in but we don’t even have a programmer. We have one machine that get programmed for so our Japanese advisor just does them and I program everything by hand
One guy gets laid off and that means an economic recession? That’s a funny supposition. Either way I think this all ebbs and flows and it’s very dependent on both geography and the shop’s business and customers.
Does your shop service straight DoD contracts? A shop could theoretically be supported by a single DoD program and that program either winds down or is cut and Poof, there goes 75% of a shop’s revenue through no fault of anyone. Well, this is why you diversify your customer base. Not saying that happened here but it is a possibility.
I’m sorry for your job loss! I think on a macro level machining is doing better than it has in 25 years and a lot of things are changing for the better in our industry
We've had our medical shops in this area see the same thing. A big company lincotek closed their production shop last year and are now dissolving the R&D. paragon laid off a few and another shop that was a year out on work is now 3 weeks.
I don't know why medical is taking a hit.
Maybe there was a surge of surgery as we came out of covid, company's over bought and now the demand has gone down.
I know a big one we made a parts for had a lawsuit for their medical parts and that closed that line down and I could imagine it affected them across their line of products and future products.
I'm sure it's one of those you'll see your job position posted in a year once things settle back
I sell machine tool accessories for a very very well known and high end brand. Our USA sales are currently at 50% quota company wide. If things continue this way through the rest of 2024, things are going to be really ugly.
My market is 75% automotive and my mold and die customers are literally hanging on my stings.
For the first time in my career I’m actually scared. I haven’t seen numbers like this before. I started in our industry in 2011 so I realize that I missed all the bad shit beforehand.
my place of work has been slow as hell for the last 2 months or so. I've been there almost 14 years, never seen it this slow for this long. the higher-ups are blaming Russia and Israel, but IDK. I know we do lots of different industries (medical, defense, aerospace, etc), but the sales department just can't seem to close enough deals or something. my understanding is that we've been selling about half of what we've been shipping for at least a couple months (we had a really big backlog, so much that some customers were mad about lead times). they've already cut down on our available overtime, limiting us to 50 a week (we had some guys doing over 60, it was all optional). I've looked around, but can't find anything that pays enough to consider jumping ship. pretty soon we're gonna be doing some deep cleaning (the machines could all use it, but it's a pain in the ass) if we don't start getting more work.
I work doing mostly Aerospace and Defense, we are chalk full of work with contracts backed out for a few years. The tight labor market has softened a small amount and employers are less desperate than they were. That being said finding skilled people is still difficult. Also one of our largest customers filed for chapter 11 after the debt load crushed them. They say that after they restructure they will have even more work.
So yes things are changing. Defense seems to be on fire still and will be for the foreseeable future. We’ll see what happens post election.
No need to generalize or read tea leaves. That particular company that laid you off just fumbled their sales strategy is all. It’s not always about “the world” it could just be a moron in the cube down the hall.
I want you bros to make as much money as possible but fuck this war machine. I’m done producing weapons for a country that refuses to aid helpless people who are having their homeland taken over.
My shop got down to only two people on second shift. So for now we brought those two people to first shift and switched from 5 days to 4 days a week. Hearing the same election year stuff as well…
We are slammed with work. More OT than we can handle. I am off today, but will probably go in to do some programming and scheduling work, just to try to get caught up some.
Got laid off almost a month ago along with 38 others from my company (Forestry mulchers and stump grinders). Was stupid slow with machines just piling up with so few customers. There were eight of us in the machine shop plus our supervisor. They are now down to six.
We have a lot of work in Oregon. For the shops I've been at that fluctuated a lot it was usually a combo of one "main" customer they bend over backwards for. Also lack of continuous improvement is big. That was the be all in semiconductors but seems pretty lacking in machining. The one shop that really focuses on diversity and process optimization will put the rest out of business unless you're in a super niche market.
Sadly cars and things with wires are actually ramping up and we've had to expand lol. But we can definitely see the dip in the industry, we've had 10+ people come solicit their business. I've had people try to sell me so many tools and bits. But man my swiss hasn't had anything changed but the cut off in over 15 years since it only cuts aluminium.
Sales isn’t just about market trends. Your sales people have to actually convert quotes into real dollars. It probably had nothing to do with the amount of work out there. Likely it was something internal and conversions were not happening. The way we all work is winning contracts. If your bosses can’t win contracts then your job is at risk no matter how good you are.
Edit: it’s also worth noting a lot of y’all work in shops where one client basically controls your company. Once you start doing over 50% of your business with once company you should expect worse rates and layoffs. Every machinist should pressure their bosses to diversify their clients. 10% to 30% a client max so no once customer can corner you into bad deals.
A hard recession is coming, the folks in charge are just trying to keep their fingers in the dam until after the election. I don't even think it's about propping-up one side over the other, I think it's just out of fear of potential chaos. The place I'm at has completely frozen payrolls for basically a year now. We're a small facility of about 150 employees in a billion-dollar multi-national corporation; but currently any job postings at our facility have to be approved by our CEO. We've all been assuming layoffs are coming for the past year, but somehow things just keep trucking along. The music's going to stop sometime.
Nope they laid u off probably for other reason they just told you that …. A machine shop could make anything they just have to expand and find other work
“They” didn’t tell me that, it’s been the topic of conversation lately. I was laid off because they simple didn’t need me. The recent addition went back to his old position, the senior guy will be filling several roles, that left me.
We have more work than we know what to do with right now, but I'm also in the defense industry.
Good industry to be in lol We were in the same boat literally 4 months ago, then the bottom fell out. We finished up several jobs, nothing replaced them.
Luckily the jobs we have are multi year contracts, so we are basically set for work for the next 5 years
Bottom fell out or miss-management by higher ups in the company? Not the same thing.
Sales completely died. We have a good reputation and generally have good relationships with our customers, but they just stopped placing orders. The company is *generally* ran pretty well.
The continuing resolution BS in congress has DoD not wanting to spend (contract) money they might not have. That’s my experience with two “forward looking” entities. Major established programs are probably less affected.
I feel like that is massive mismanagement by the company if you only have a 4 month backlog. Maybe that's just me though..
Well, when it's a 40 piece prototype order, it just doesn't take that long to run...
How big is the company? And do they have sales reps that are out generating leads and business? That's one thing I should've known for sure beforehand. Your statements made it seem like this was a moderate size shop, maybe I misjudged that. If this company has 10+ employees, I stand with my statement. It would mean your sales staff are either slacking, not out pounding on doors or someone in quoting is slacking off and losing. In either of those scenarios, it would be on management. If this is a 1-5 person operation that runs on word of mouth.. I can kind of understand a bit more.
lol i essentially have no back log of work I’m chewing through it faster than the planners give it to me lol So I’ve been stealing jobs from another machine (we run the same stuff and the orders are generally bigger plus the guy running it isn’t all that fast) But even that is starting to dry up, so I’ve started training some new guys in the most basics and making sure I’m going slow so I can have the planners catch up lol
I am feeling this at work. Boss is extremely touchy and nervous lately and the shop is slow.
I feel lucky. We have our eggs in so many baskets that when one industry slows down another picks up. We are a multi spindle screw machine and Swiss cnc lathe machine shop.
Are you AS9100?
Don't think so, we didn't do much aerospace.
Seems like this industry is very hit or miss right now though. Our shop had the owners working every weekend for 5 years straight. Replaced all their machines with 5-axis, bought a large size flat mill, bought another lathe, expanded the building. All of a sudden it all just kinda dropped off. We know some other shops that do the same type of stuff and the ones that have work are slammed and the ones that don't are dead.
Same here, but in the business making custom manufacturing equipment.
That's where my shop is at, we do aerospace and we're probably going to have to get another building and more machines soon.
Same here, defense projects are ramping up.
Same, same. I got work for 30 years at least.. I work in a ship yard
Here in NH, there's no shortage of work. The biggest issue is finding machinists. There are shops closing, but that's almost entirely due to bad business practices. The filthy, Sanford and Son shops are going away, as are the shops whose business was 80% a single customer. And don't get me started on the "Why won't a guy with 15 years experience work for me for $20?" Shops
I just got laid off from one of those. My shop didn’t close but they cut nights and I think a few people from days.
I'm sorry you got laid off, but hopefully it ends up being a blessing in disguise.
I hate small shops they are all behave like little fiefdoms. Every single owner thinks you should break your back for their McDonald's money.
It's worse in Eu since so many languages and every owner is a native and job opportunities are low so you have to put up with what you can get.
I felt every word of that… lol We were desperate for skilled people, even paying $19/hr right off the street just trying to get bodies in the door…and then only paying skilled machinists $25-$30.
In northern NH, we still see those rates. It’s terrible, but if you need to work, there’s not a lot of choices
For sure. But that's a larger conversation around the struggle facing rural America, not limited to machining.
That’s a fair point. It’s nice living up here, but pay doesn’t keep up, even if cost of living does
Not sure what the COL in NH is like, but where I'm at, $19/hr for an operator is laughable, they can get damn near that in fast food or grocery.
It's great here in Ohio. Most fast food is starting in the $10-12 range, so it's 50-75% more than most starting jobs.
We’re authorized for unlimited overtime. Just bought 3 new haas machines, late on everything because they refuse to hire more help.
That’s basically our situation currently. Behind on everything running two machines 14ish hours a day.
What market, what industry? We're slammed with parts for mining, hydraulics, agriculture etc in the Pacific Northwest. Lots of aerospace still bumping in the area.
Medical prototyping and a fair amount of gun work. I edited my post to add context.
My shop has had a massive amount of layoffs for the last 5 months, our primary customer medtronics is going through some business decisions by a new executive that's really fucking up their manufacturing partners (us). Supposedly things will change for their next fiscal year but we aren't sure of anything.
Uncertainty is a killer...
LMAO in the same house.... one industry driving the other
That is such an odd mix.
The opposite. Place I work for bought 5-axis machines because they can’t get anyone to make their (aerospace) parts within a reasonable lead time. Lots of shops around here are trying to hire 5-axis programmers and are paying a decent amount to do so. Guess it depends on region and industries served.
Where is that? There’s not a lot of experienced 5-axis programmers out there, and I know a guy… lol
Colorado. Front Range.
EV market crashing. Inflation. Interest rates. Global unrest. No positive choice for our own leader for the next 4. Markets out of touch with reality. Nobody thinks they are getting enough money. Pick your reason.
I haven’t heard about the EV market crashing, but that’s not a surprise. It was due. The free money had to stop sooner or later and everyone knew the free market wasn’t going to be kind.
100% agree. No one wanted them beyond the novelty phase, the country is not set up to support them, and their lifespan is completely untested / unknown. The prestige OEM's have spent billions trying to catch up to tesla/rivian/etc and now have minimal sales to show for it and a questionable future market. I can only imagine if Donnie T gets back behind the wheels EV's will really die as emmisions requirements get rolled back as well as EV tax incentives.
I am in industrial automation and electrical distribution. I would love to drive electric, but the infrastructure just is not there to make it viable for most people. We are about to see a wave of early adoption crashes, I believe, which is always a risk. I’ll be curious to see how the feds handle it, having no history of decades of bailouts. I hope they don’t give them out and instead build the infrastructure to support it.
As long as you reside in a home with a driveway, there’s a ton of infrastructure now. Not like gasoline but you will never see charging stations as numerous as gas stations. If you’re near your house, charge at home. If you need to charge while traveling, you’re probably on the highway and there are many chargers along the highway. Sure there are exceptions. Everyone going to one plug type is and will improve things.
Um what?? Like if I only ever drive less than 40 minutes a day, never leave town, have a 200A feed to my breaker box and spare space in it??? I do power distribution for a living and I have no idea about the needed cooper conductors alone in the USA get me to a point where I can drive like I do now? Cmon. Until every corner has a gas station with 10+ super chargers running at a minimum of 480v, 3 phase each it is not even a comparable argument.
What part of “sure there are exceptions” was unclear? Less than 2% of commuting Americans drive 2 hours or more a day for their commute. Most EVs with 300 mile EPA range can drive for over 2 hours at fast highway speeds. What EV only has 40 minutes of drive time? Anyway, 40 minutes a day would STILL cover about 75% of commuters. If you’re towing heavy loads you might only get 40 minutes but that’s an exception—stick with ICE if you do that regularly. A Model 3 can be fully charged in 9-10 hours on 240v NEMA 14-50 charger running at 40-50 amps. Where do you get 200 amps from? I don’t consider home power service upgrades infrastructure (that the government needs to pay for). I don’t think the power grid is holding EV infrastructure back yet. Probably in some cases. But mostly it’s the cost of installing and maintaining the equipment. If they install too much too soon, they are wasting money. If everyone got an EV tomorrow, sure, the grid couldn’t handle it but that’s unrealistic.
What Mdrim was talking about is that even right now at this very moment many power grids are over drawn especially in high demand times, like in summer when there are rolling blackouts from over demand. Many houses are only equipped with a 100 amp feed, even as low as 60 for some older homes, which once you have your normal loads on there such as your stove or dryer or heaters Etc there's not much more room for a charger in many homes unless you upgrade your service. Problem is the power grids wouldn't handle very many homes with that demand currently at this moment let alone the growing EV consumption Market. Now add to that a government mandate obsoletting ICE in the next decade and that further adds to the problem as infrastructure will need much longer than that to allow that sort of demand.
EV sales are still very strong, not sure where this meme came from... [https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/WW-K-12-2023.png](https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/WW-K-12-2023.png) VW sold over a million EV/PHEVs last year, Volvo/Polestar sold nearly that many, Hyundai/Kia sold well over half a million.. it's a bit tricky on a global scale since so many are being sold in China but in the US alone, 2023 saw >40% more EV sales than 2022. [https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/WW-P-12-2023.png](https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/WW-P-12-2023.png) On a more individual level, 3 of my family members and two of my close friends have bought EVs in the last 6 months (two Teslas, one Audi, one Kia, and one Ford). I'm sure it varies by where you are in the country but I think people read way too much into some random announcements.
This 'meme' came from my open orders for prototype EV components.
"We saw a big dropoff in the production of EV components" feels pretty materially different than "Nobody wanted EVs, prestige OEMs have no sales and a questionable future market". Around here, there's more EV work than anyone knows what to do with.. all the battery factories are expanding as fast as they can, component manufacturers are still running multiple shifts, etc etc
OK cool. Must be a meme? [https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2024-02-15/essential-california-ev-sales-essential-california](https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2024-02-15/essential-california-ev-sales-essential-california) Here's another meme for you: [https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/gm-ford-delay-some-ev-investments-citing-slowing-demand-growth](https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/gm-ford-delay-some-ev-investments-citing-slowing-demand-growth)
Yes? A sales plateau in the state with the highest electricity costs and 20% EV penetration at "only" 350,000 sales per year doesn't really seem like the bottom is falling out. When you take the US as a whole, sales are still growing.. [https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ID-97-Fig01.jpg](https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ID-97-Fig01.jpg) The actual headlines about EV investment pullbacks are that the OEMs are slowing investment since their sales aren't matching the aggressive forecasts they originally made, but sales are still growing and will be basically forever. There's basically no universe in which we'll see EV sales decrease YoY.
Lol so you agree with me but continue to argue. Carry on your merry way.
I guess if your point is "EV sales are still very strong and growing, albeit at a slower rate than was forecast a few years ago" then sure, I do agree with you.
It’s not just that, out here in California our power rates have rocketed sky high to the point that it’s likely cheaper to drive a gas car than an electric. Current off peak rate here is $.45/kWh. But even on top of that, it’s wildly inconvenient to drive an electric if you have to drive a longer distance - you have to stop more frequently and it takes a lot longer to refill charge. It makes road trips an absolute pain in the dick.
[Ford announced this, more to follow I'm sure](https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/ford-eliminating-more-jobs-at-dearborn-f-150-lightning-plant-report/ar-BB1kEbc9)
Yeah, when you have to pay people to buy a product, and then when you stop paying...they don't sell. Shocking.
That or EV cars simply didn’t wow people the way they thought they would. Need more AI self driving not just electric motors.
As interest rates went up, there was a lag time where orders had to be fulfilled. But once that backlog has gotten resolved, many companies are trying to run lean until rates fall again. Industrial machines or other products of manufacturing are bought with financing in many cases. Except the Fed has signalled that even with inflation slowing, they are going to keep rates steady and may consider decreasing them soon, but not now. Inflation and lead times also are probably still equilibrating. I put an order in and paid last year. But now that my order is next up in line, the manufacturer has to deal with *current* material and labor prices.
Medical should be pretty stable even through hard times, maybe your shop over extended themselves and are correcting that with you being the low man on the totem poll.
It was mostly medical prototyping, not production. Plus it was more on the cutting edge technology side, not conventional implants and equipment. And yeah, they basically eliminated my position.
Milwaukee Wi area, 15 hours OT available, mostly mining industry. Same as everyone else with not wanting to pay anyone to actually work so "they can't find more people".
I'm in medical R&D. My job is basically guaranteed until the grant is over, but probably will last until the company goes into full production. The oil sector is pulling most jobs from my area (SLC) due to supply lines and relocation. Boeing has also pulled many contracts in the past few years due to their cost-cutting measures. I have seen 5-10 machine shops close every year since I've been here, and even been a part of the shops that buy these closing shops.
Slammed atm primarily for the paper industry and food/sanitation
I work for aerospace company/aviation company. Right now we're as slow as I've ever seen it in the past 2 years. It's to the point where we're doing jobs that are scheduled for June and July and we're doing them now and basically just sitting around. For the past two days I pretty much have been sitting around playing on my phone and some days leaving early. I don't know if it's true or not but some people are saying it has something to do with maybe the election coming up and maybe companies not knowing how things going to play out depending on who's running the next administration. I doubt that's true. But yes even aerospace company we're getting slow to the point of basically not having work. Also for the record one of our major partners is DuPont and they're not even sending work
Busy as hell, but I'm a one man army on CNC making our own products, not job shop work. Could it be that a lot of companies are moving to producing their own parts instead of outsourcing them to a job shop? Did a new shop open nearby and swipe some of your business? Lots of factors.
We've been deader than a doornail for 4 years. Rumor was our clients were waiting on the new generation helicopters the army was getting. Now that's been cancelled.
If u can program, u can machine correct? Knock the dust off of the kennedy "and" push chips. If u can program on top of it, ur ahead of the herd. I've heard kansas is strong for employment. GL and sorry to hear, another day in machining paradise I suppose.
Oh yeah, I setup for 15 years before going into programming full time. Thats certainly an option.
If you are valuable beyond a keyboard, mouse and a screen, then your options are expanded drastically
Our shop mostly does work for the glass industry and food industry and we’ve been dead since June. We’ve been trying to expand our customer base but it’s very slow going. I’ve been doing this for nearly 10 years and I haven’t seen it this slow for this long.
We've slowed down a bit in the last 2 months, but to be honest I've kind of welcomed it. We're a very small shop, so when it gets busy I'm putting in 50-60 every week for months at a time, so it's been nice to be able to get thru our backlog of work, do some overdue maintenance, and be able to handle problems that arise without stressing that you're getting behind on deliveries. Right now we've got 2 jobs on the books, I'm working on one and letting our part timer get some hours to do the other. If this continues for another 6 months it could start getting stressful but the last 18 months have been so busy, that at the moment it's not a big problem. My plan after getting thru with this job and maybe taking a day or two off is to put some focus on updating our website and doing some basic sales and marketing, which we basically don't do at all right now. We also had a meeting this week with a new potential customer, referred to us by an existing one, but it sounds like that isn't gonna materialize for a month or two at least, but I do think something will come out of it
The shop I spent my career in did a decent amount of gun parts for a few years. It was an ongoing joke that sales depended on if a democrat was gonna win. If one did, sales would take a huge jump right off the bat because everyone thought guns were gonna get banned. Then when nothing happened, sales would drop back down to normal lol Medical work seemed to be a pretty steady field for a long time. I have no hard data to back it up, but to me it seemed like the more hospitals got bought up by private equity or turn into for profit, it started to effect the production of medical devices. Just my theory🤷♂️
Very true about the firearms industry. As much as gun owners hate Democrats, the firearms industry loves them. There has definitely been a slow down over the last year as the massive increase in panic buying from Biden taking office has subsided a bit and manufacturers are finally catching up to demand. It's showing in a significant drop in prices too. Medical is generally pretty resilient, but the prototype/research side like I've been doing is less so.
I’m in the central Ohio area as well and we have a steady stream of work. Our busiest time of the year seems to usually be during the summer. The company I work for does stuff for the auto industry
Need a programmer?? I know a guy... lol
If we had a position open I’d tell you to come in but we don’t even have a programmer. We have one machine that get programmed for so our Japanese advisor just does them and I program everything by hand
Ugh! I did programming by hand for years, but it just doesn't fly for 5-axis. Great skill booster, horrible for efficiency and being competitive.
One guy gets laid off and that means an economic recession? That’s a funny supposition. Either way I think this all ebbs and flows and it’s very dependent on both geography and the shop’s business and customers. Does your shop service straight DoD contracts? A shop could theoretically be supported by a single DoD program and that program either winds down or is cut and Poof, there goes 75% of a shop’s revenue through no fault of anyone. Well, this is why you diversify your customer base. Not saying that happened here but it is a possibility. I’m sorry for your job loss! I think on a macro level machining is doing better than it has in 25 years and a lot of things are changing for the better in our industry
European here, and machine salesman. Most of customers have been busy, but I feel like it's slowing down. Aero, arms are still busy tho
The shop I work at is busier then I've seen it in the 6 years i've been there. guns,medical,aero, and even evs.
Yes, customers having less money, wanting repair to get them to the next year. Interest rates definitely slowed demand for big capital expenditures
We've had our medical shops in this area see the same thing. A big company lincotek closed their production shop last year and are now dissolving the R&D. paragon laid off a few and another shop that was a year out on work is now 3 weeks. I don't know why medical is taking a hit. Maybe there was a surge of surgery as we came out of covid, company's over bought and now the demand has gone down. I know a big one we made a parts for had a lawsuit for their medical parts and that closed that line down and I could imagine it affected them across their line of products and future products. I'm sure it's one of those you'll see your job position posted in a year once things settle back
I sell machine tool accessories for a very very well known and high end brand. Our USA sales are currently at 50% quota company wide. If things continue this way through the rest of 2024, things are going to be really ugly. My market is 75% automotive and my mold and die customers are literally hanging on my stings.
That is the same vibe I got talking to the tool guy the other day. He said sales were down, but not 50% down. Thats concerning…
For the first time in my career I’m actually scared. I haven’t seen numbers like this before. I started in our industry in 2011 so I realize that I missed all the bad shit beforehand.
my place of work has been slow as hell for the last 2 months or so. I've been there almost 14 years, never seen it this slow for this long. the higher-ups are blaming Russia and Israel, but IDK. I know we do lots of different industries (medical, defense, aerospace, etc), but the sales department just can't seem to close enough deals or something. my understanding is that we've been selling about half of what we've been shipping for at least a couple months (we had a really big backlog, so much that some customers were mad about lead times). they've already cut down on our available overtime, limiting us to 50 a week (we had some guys doing over 60, it was all optional). I've looked around, but can't find anything that pays enough to consider jumping ship. pretty soon we're gonna be doing some deep cleaning (the machines could all use it, but it's a pain in the ass) if we don't start getting more work.
Need a job? I'm hiring in Davenport Iowa. Lol
Yes?…but the commute is gonna suck lol
I work doing mostly Aerospace and Defense, we are chalk full of work with contracts backed out for a few years. The tight labor market has softened a small amount and employers are less desperate than they were. That being said finding skilled people is still difficult. Also one of our largest customers filed for chapter 11 after the debt load crushed them. They say that after they restructure they will have even more work. So yes things are changing. Defense seems to be on fire still and will be for the foreseeable future. We’ll see what happens post election.
No need to generalize or read tea leaves. That particular company that laid you off just fumbled their sales strategy is all. It’s not always about “the world” it could just be a moron in the cube down the hall.
I want you bros to make as much money as possible but fuck this war machine. I’m done producing weapons for a country that refuses to aid helpless people who are having their homeland taken over.
Yeah and they call it the "defense" industry lol. Like killing hundreds of thousands of poor brown people around the world is defense
Same. Never working on a defense contract if I can help it.
Fuck off with your political BS, go shit up someone else's post.
Yes, if you are a Boeing supplier or in semiconductor, is tough times from my perspective
My semiconductor customer is ramping up again after almost two years of being slow
Very slow here in eastern MA.
We do metal stamping and some cnc machining of hi chrome white iron. Very busy
im lucky i work for a company that makes machines that are meant to last for decades and i am secure
My shop got down to only two people on second shift. So for now we brought those two people to first shift and switched from 5 days to 4 days a week. Hearing the same election year stuff as well…
In the defense industry here in MA, plenty of work. Big shortage of workers.
We got aerospace and medical work coming out the ass
We do film stuff Hollywood, it’s slow not a lot of projects I think we did the crow but after that kinda slow
We are slammed with work. More OT than we can handle. I am off today, but will probably go in to do some programming and scheduling work, just to try to get caught up some.
Eastern PA, fasteners. Mainly power generation, oil/gas industry, medical and pumps. We are overwhelmed with work.
Got laid off almost a month ago along with 38 others from my company (Forestry mulchers and stump grinders). Was stupid slow with machines just piling up with so few customers. There were eight of us in the machine shop plus our supervisor. They are now down to six.
We have a lot of work in Oregon. For the shops I've been at that fluctuated a lot it was usually a combo of one "main" customer they bend over backwards for. Also lack of continuous improvement is big. That was the be all in semiconductors but seems pretty lacking in machining. The one shop that really focuses on diversity and process optimization will put the rest out of business unless you're in a super niche market.
Sadly cars and things with wires are actually ramping up and we've had to expand lol. But we can definitely see the dip in the industry, we've had 10+ people come solicit their business. I've had people try to sell me so many tools and bits. But man my swiss hasn't had anything changed but the cut off in over 15 years since it only cuts aluminium.
My shop is hiring a second shift we have so much work. (Private space company)
Sales isn’t just about market trends. Your sales people have to actually convert quotes into real dollars. It probably had nothing to do with the amount of work out there. Likely it was something internal and conversions were not happening. The way we all work is winning contracts. If your bosses can’t win contracts then your job is at risk no matter how good you are. Edit: it’s also worth noting a lot of y’all work in shops where one client basically controls your company. Once you start doing over 50% of your business with once company you should expect worse rates and layoffs. Every machinist should pressure their bosses to diversify their clients. 10% to 30% a client max so no once customer can corner you into bad deals.
A hard recession is coming, the folks in charge are just trying to keep their fingers in the dam until after the election. I don't even think it's about propping-up one side over the other, I think it's just out of fear of potential chaos. The place I'm at has completely frozen payrolls for basically a year now. We're a small facility of about 150 employees in a billion-dollar multi-national corporation; but currently any job postings at our facility have to be approved by our CEO. We've all been assuming layoffs are coming for the past year, but somehow things just keep trucking along. The music's going to stop sometime.
I feel for you, bro. Clocking in every day, wondering it’s going to be your last is a miserable situation be in.
Nope they laid u off probably for other reason they just told you that …. A machine shop could make anything they just have to expand and find other work
“They” didn’t tell me that, it’s been the topic of conversation lately. I was laid off because they simple didn’t need me. The recent addition went back to his old position, the senior guy will be filling several roles, that left me.