General Motors announces its largest single investment ever on a new battery plant and developing the current production line to build electric trucks. With this, the company aims to create 4,000 new jobs. While overall investment is around $7 billion, among which $4 billion will be spent at an assembly plant in Orion Township, near Detroit.
The company will invest $2.6 billion in a new battery plant in Lansing, creating another 1,700 jobs. By 2024, The two factories are expected to begin operations. Where the Orion factory will be building battery-powered Chevrolet Silverados and GMC Sierra pickup trucks.
GM CEO Mary Barra said, “We will have the products, the battery cell capacity, and the vehicle assembly capacity to be the EV leader by mid-decade.” GM is aiming to have 30 electric models on offer by 2025, a milestone on the way to its goal of building only battery-powered cars and trucks by 2035. President Biden praised the announcement, noting that it was “just the latest in over $100 billion of investment this past year in American auto manufacturing to build electric vehicles and batteries.”
As GM looks to deliver on its promise of 20 new EVs by next year, it is putting some major production infrastructure in place that finally feels like it’s living up to that “all in” promise it made a couple of years ago. Earlier this week, GM announced it is revamping its Lockport facility in western New York to produce EV motor components.
General Motors in the EV segment
General Motors remains a name synonymous with autos, even as the market slowly but surely shifts toward EVs. The automaker saw relatively early success in electric vehicles, particularly with its Bolt EV and EUV helping it maintain a presence as the 2nd EV automaker in the US for quite some time.
The end of 2021 proved tumultuous for GM, however, following a massive recall on the Bolt which led to a complete halt of production. As a result, century-long rival Ford swept in behind global frontrunner, Tesla.
The announcement about GM’s investment is stated as below by the automaker,
“Today we are taking the next step in our continuous work to establish GM’s EV leadership by making investments in our vertically integrated battery production in the U.S., and our North American EV production capacity. We are building on the positive consumer response and reservations for our recent EV launches and debuts, including GMC HUMMER EV, Cadillac LYRIQ, Chevrolet Equinox EV, and Chevrolet Silverado EV. Our plan creates the broadest EV portfolio of any automaker and further solidifies our path toward U.S. EV leadership by mid-decade.”
