Cleveland-Cliffs' future is in electric vehicles, CEO says
Full disclosure: I own some.
Manufacturing
Cleveland-Cliffs' future is in electric vehicles, CEO says
By Mary Vanac Staff Reporter, Cleveland Business Journal
Jul 22, 2022
Business is getting exciting at Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., the vertically integrated steelmaker based in Cleveland, the company's CEO told securities analysts on Friday. ... CEO Lourenco Goncalves ended a conference call about his company's second-quarter earnings by telling analysts that Cleveland-Cliffs is a "predictable and boring" company but one "that continues to see around the corner."
"Right now it's not even that difficult to see around the corner," said Goncalves, who transformed the iron-ore miner into a steelmaker two years ago by acquiring AK Steel and ArcelorMittal USA. ... "The future is in automotive," and in the automotive industry, the future is "in electric vehicles, and we're working on that," he said.
"It's pretty much the entire industry going on toward that, and they're all buying from us," Goncalves said. ... Cleveland-Cliffs supplied more than half the steel for the 13 million vehicles produced in North America last year, he said. That number of vehicles was significantly depressed by a shortage of microchips, Goncalves said. ... The steelmaker also is working with several automakers on its "non-oriented electrical steel," which is used as a motor core material in electric vehicles.
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