GM Pours Billions Into EV Production at Factory ZERO, Spring Hill
Photo: Steve Fecht for General Motors
General Motors is in the midst of a bold transition to electric vehicles — and to what it calls a “zero-crashes, zero-emissions, and zero-congestion future.” As part of that effort, the automaker recently unveiled one new facility devoted to EV production and announced the planned conversion of another.
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GM investments at Factory ZERO and Spring Hill
The Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center in Michigan will be renamed Factory ZERO and shift to all-electric vehicles. GM is spending $2.2 billion to do this — the largest plant investment in company history. The resulting upgrades will allow the facility to construct models like the GMC Hummer EV and the Cruise Origin self-driving vehicle.
GM says Factory ZERO will be able to fully run on renewable energy by 2023. The plant’s redesign will also let it operate more sustainably in other ways.
The assembly plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, is also gaining the ability to build EVs. The first all-electric model to be built there will be the Cadillac Lyriq. Unlike Factory ZERO, this facility will also continue to build gas-powered vehicles like the Cadillac XT5 and XT6.
GM’s Spring Hill investment will total about $2 billion, covering paint and body shop expansions along with a variety of new machinery for manufacturing EVs.
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Photo: Wade Payne for General Motors
These upgrades come on top of last year’s $300 million investment in Michigan’s Orion Assembly, which is responsible for building a new Chevrolet EV. And GM’s joint Ultium battery venture with LG Chem is investing over $2 billion into a plant in Lordstown, Ohio.
GM is also putting millions of dollars toward several non-EV plants in Michigan. More than $100 million is going to Lansing Delta Township Assembly, which will take over building the next-generation GMC Acadia. Flint Assembly is receiving $32 million for Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD production. The Romulus propulsion plant will get $17 million to build 10-speed automatic transmissions for full-size SUVs.
Overall, GM has invested more than $29 billion in its plants around the U.S. since 2009. As the company ramps up its EV efforts, expect even more spending to make these plans a reality.
A longtime editor/writer and recently transplanted Hoosier, Caleb Cook lives in Xenia, Ohio. His favorite activities are reading and listening to music, although he occasionally emerges from the heap of books and vinyl records in his basement to stand blinking in the sunlight. Once fully acclimated to the outside world again, he can be observed hanging out with his wife, attempting a new recipe in the kitchen, attending movies, walking the dog, or wandering into a local brewery to inquire about what’s on tap. See more articles by Caleb.