GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Anticipated Closing Opens Old Wounds
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When General Motors announced the “unallocation” of several factories Monday, one stuck out—Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, as it’s within sight lines of GM’s global headquarters shoring the Detroit River. Currently, the facility builds the politically charged Chevrolet Volt, Chevrolet Impala, Buick LaCrosse, and Cadillac CT6, which the automaker will discontinue making. Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly has a controversial beginning, as told by the Detroit Free Press.
Back in the 1980s, Detroit was desperate for economic development. GM proposed a new plant that sat at the edge of Hamtramck and Detroit. However, the proposed 300-acre plot of land was home to churches, businesses, and, well, actual homes. It was known locally as Poletown, a vibrant Polish community of 4,000 residents, 1,000 houses, and more than 100 business.
To GM and then-Detroit-mayor Coleman Young, that community wasn’t going to stand in their way. Government officials used Michigan’s highly controversial eminent domain powers to seize the land from its owners and gift it to the automaker. This didn’t go over well with community members. Protests erupted, and arrests were made as opponents decided to take their case to the Michigan Supreme Court. Except, the court sided with GM, giving the local government and automaker power to legally seize the land, which has left a bitter taste in the mouth of residents.
Now, after 33 years of operation, it’s expected that GM plans to shutter the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant and other unallocated facilities at the end of 2019. Yes, the facility brought jobs to the community, even as some detractors questioned how well GM delivered those promises. The community fought hard to keep their homes, property, and community alive, but at the time, the courts sided with the automaker, allowing property from one private person to be seized and given to another private entity to create jobs.
That precedent has since been demolished when in 2004 the state Supreme Court invalidated the Poletown precedent. In 2006, Proposal 4 further curtailed the government’s eminent domain powers in the state. However, it doesn’t take away the heartache many feel with the plant’s now proposed closing. Thousands of families were displaced for one factory that could soon become a vacant eyesore, after the plant built low-demand vehicles for several years.
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The whole GM management team is a morally vacant eyesore. Over the last 4 years, they spent billions on stock buybacks to their benefit instead of investing on product improvements to the benefit of customers, employees and stockholders Now they say they want to invest billions into electrification and autonomous vehicles. Do we really believe these clowns know what they are doing?
Agree completely. I posted similar thoughts elsewhere on this site. GM supposedly needs cash to invest in electrification and autonomous vehicles (even though they’re dropping their hybrid-electric car and their only autonomous car) but over the last three years they’ve spent $10 billion buying up stock which does nothing to get GM “at the forefront” but rather enriches Miss Mary, Lloyd’s boy and the rest of crew in the Executive suites.
The biggest detriment to GM’s success is its shareholders, their greed and their bean counter executives. There’s not much else to say that others haven’t said. What an absolute shame that this once great company has become.
“facility builds the politically charged Chevrolet Volt, Chevrolet Impala, Buick LaCrosse, and Cadillac CT6”
With such a diverse product offering this plant must have the latest flexible production capability. Build some SUVs, CUVs and/or trucks here replacing the outgoing products?!
70sandOut,
It doesn’t appear that GM wants these plants. They appear to have strategically placed these products in these plants and then failed to diversify the product mix so as to force this day to come. Had they wanted to keep Lordstown open, the Blazer would’ve went there instead of Mexico and all Cruz production could’ve been shifted south of the border or to Hamtramck where the Cruz’s platform mate, the Volt, is already built. Had they wanted to keep Hamtramck open, it would have also gotten a CUV instead of the CT6 which GM knew would never be a high volume product. LGR should be producing the CT6 along with other Cadillacs. My opinion is that GM wanted this. They want to reduce their North American footprint and increase it in Mexico where labor is cheaper. The product mix at these plants was intentional and the desired effect has now been achieved.
GM claims to be going green, however they have 1 electric car that hardly any dealers stock and are cutting both of their hybrids. I would never drive an electric/hybrid but a lot of people will.
GM can sure talk the talk, but in the end they are still riding the shaft of big oil and the stockholders.
The problem with the Chevy Volt was marketing and price. I went to a Chevy dealer and test drove it. The Volt had a well put together interior, comfortable seats that were supportive, the infotainment system was the best I’ve seen in a non-luxury car and best of all the car handles well and was planted when I took it out on the highway. It was pretty much everything the Prius wasn’t. Sure, it wasn’t as fuel efficient as a Prius but you don’t buy a volt to use it on gas, you buy it for the electric range.
Point is, plenty of people want an alternative to the Prius that behaves nothing at all like the Prius. But GM is too stupid to market the car and too cheap to try to put the powertrain in other cars to spread the cost around and justify the R&D which is what any big company run by someone with two brain cells to rub together would have done.
But if you “would never buy an electric/hybrid”, aren’t you also riding the shaft of big oil?
I have a Volt and a Bolt, and they are the best cars I have ever owned!
If GM took the Voltec battery electric w/ backup engine system and put it in an SUV or a small pickup truck, they would sell by the tens of thousands!
GM is now building in volume what most Americans want, SUV’s and Trucks.
My only concern is that when, not if, there is a major spike in the price of gasoline, what will GM have to offer to those that decide they need to purchase something right at that time that gets superior mileage.
They keep talking about 20+ electrified vehicles in the pipeline, but it would be nice to know something of what they are planning…..
JMHO
If I didn’t know better, I’d swear GM was just angling for another taxpayer funded bailout…
Maybe not a bailout per se, how about a calculated attempt to get rid of the UAW and continue the EV tax credits. A little blackmail for “good” old “Art of the Deal” to negotiate out of. Our auto workers are doomed I fear…..
They will pay dearly for this. Reduced sales and market share, a fantasy land leader with a failed vision, loads of displaced workers that will probably never buy another GM product again and now this. They are really playing a dangerous game and it will bite them really hard in the long run.
Tesla’s hiring!
Had a Volt, and an ELR. Both were great cars. If I could have seen a CT6 Hybrid I would have probably had one of those when I turned in my ELR. Now what have they got for me, nothing. I want a hybrid, not an all-electric car. I waited years for them to put the Voltec underpinnings under a smaller SUV. The CT4 that Cadillac has would have been perfect. After GM getting the big bailout and stealing all that property with the eminent domain to build all the factories that they are now shutting down, I may never buy another GM product, period.
what makes these idiots at GM that the American drivers want autonomous of electric vehicles —take a poll i’ll start it with the first NO
But, but Trump promised that manufacturers would be tripping over each other bringing back production back to the US. And now ALL of them, including BMW and MB are moving production to Mexico, Asia and even Europe.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/usmca-will-add-to-costs-could-eliminate-jobs-automakers-1.1169054
l
Trump supporters on this site will just scream fake news.
It’s so ironic that their false prophet is the ultimate snake oil salesman who has absolutely no respect for them…