Chrysler Cuts Hours At Ontario Minivan Assembly Plant

Canadian autoworkers were given a bit of a holiday this week - but not the fun-in-the-sun kind. Instead, Chrysler cut the hours worked at its three-shift minivan plant in half, dropping each one to four hours in a bid to reduce inventory of the Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country.

According to the Automotive News, the slowdown is expected to end on Monday, March 18, and was put into place to realign minivan production with consumer demand, which has dropped 15 percent during the first quarter of 2013. A 69-day supply of Town & Country minivans sits on dealer lots across the United States, a metric that translates into almost 25,000 unsold vehicles. Close to 19,000 of the Chrysler's Dodge compatriot are also languishing under similar circumstances.

Further compounding the over-capacity problem is that Chrysler had originally planned to build a certain number of Volkswagen Routan minivans - essentially re-badged Grand Caravans - for its German partner. The Routan has been met with resounding apathy by families in both North America and Europe, however, and a moratorium on production of this vehicle is in place until the coming summer.