General Motors is making a $300 million investment at its Orion Assembly Plant in Michigan, Besides already building the Chevrolet Bolt, the company’s Chevy Sonic subcompact and prototype autonomous versions of the Bolt EV for GM’s Cruise Automation division are also built at the Orion plant.
The company in a statement said this was a portion of GM’s “new commitment to invest a total of $1.8 billion in its United States manufacturing operations, creating 700 new jobs and supporting 28,000 jobs across six states.”
“It makes sense because the Chevrolet Bolt EV is built at Orion and this is a great workforce,” GM CEO Mary Barra told CNBC. “So there is capacity here to be able to do that and there are synergies as well.”
GM declined to say when work would begin on the new car or when additional workers would be hired at the Orion plant, nor would it say if the workers will be new hires or come from a pool of laid-off workers from plants GM has closed.
However, according to the Detroit Free Press, a GM spokesman said the $1.8 billion investment will unfold over the next two to three years, and this includes the investment in Orion.
It should be noted that despite last weekend’s string of venomous tweets by President Donald Trump condemning GM for shutting its small-car factory in Lordstown, Ohio, in truth, he actually has nothing to do with today’s announcement.
GM’s plans for an additional investment in the Orion Assembly Plant has been going on for a long time, as GM sought to restructure and stay profitable.
Barra discussed boosting production of the Chevy Bolt at a Houston conference in March 2018, saying: “Because of increasing global demand for the Chevrolet Bolt EV, we are announcing today that we will increase Bolt EV production later this year.”
CTV News Canada reports GM spokesman Dan Flores said GM plans to build more vehicles using the same platform as the Bolt – which can go an estimated 238 miles on a single charge. And remember that GM has already announced it would be introducing 20 new electric cars globally by 2023.
In January this year, General Motors also signed agreements with two of the largest charging networks in the US, Chargepoint and EVgo, along with Greenlots that will allow Bolt drivers to access data about which charging stations are open and available.
