mobile-menu-icon
GM Authority

Former Cadillac Stamping Plant Will Serve As New Auto Seat Manufacturing Site

American automotive parts supplier Lear Corporation has announced that it will build a new manufacturing facility on the site of a former Cadillac stamping plant in Detroit. The new facility will churn out seats for GM’s all-electric vehicles, and is expected to create hundreds of local jobs.

According to a recent report from Detroit Free Press, Lear Corp. made the announcement last week. The new manufacturing center will cost $48 million to build, and will span some 648,000 square feet, situated on a 43-acre site located at 9501 Conner Street. NorthPoint Development has been tapped for construction duties.

“The facility will be one of our most energy-efficient plants in North America, and not only create hundreds of new jobs, but will be another important step forward in the redevelopment of Detroit’s eastside neighborhood,” Lear said in a statement.

The new Lear manufacturing plant will provide just-in-time seating solutions for various electric vehicles built at the General Motors Factory Zero facility, previously known as Detroit-Hamtramck. The first products to receive the new Lear Corp. seats will be the all-electric GMC Hummer EV pickup truck and GMC Hummer SUV.

For the moment, Lear Corp. has not announced specific details with regard to the number of employees expected to work there, nor when the plant is expected to be operational. However, according to Detroit Free Press, the new site is expected to be cleared sometime this fall, while construction of the new facility may be finished as early as next summer.

The Cadillac stamping plant that originally occupied the site was torn down in March. While Cadillac shuttered the facility in the ‘80s, it was later repurposed as a machine shop. However, the site was abandoned roughly six years ago, and is currently set to be cleared for the new Lear Corp. seat manufacturing facility.

Subscribe to GM Authority for more General Motors business news, Cadillac news, and around-the-clock General Motors news coverage.

Jonathan is an automotive journalist based out of Southern California. He loves anything and everything on four wheels.

Subscribe to GM Authority

For around-the-clock GM news coverage

We'll send you one email per day with the latest GM news. It's totally free.

Comments

  1. Moving towards electric cars is creating jobs in America ! Biden was right !

    Reply
    1. More battery dump sites will be needed and more coal fired electric plants will be built .
      MORE JOBS !!!

      Reply
  2. This is good news, but as usual the media creates a headline that grabs attention but doesn’t tell the true story.

    The gm Detroit/Hamtramck assembly plant opened in 1985 and utilized an outside supplier to build the seats per broadcast sequence and delivered them just in time. The plant shut down recently for conversion to EVs. So where did all the jobs go at the former seat supplier’s plant?

    The article should correctly state “hundreds of former jobs will be recovered”. I would bet with today’s product and process design that greater efficiencies will be in place and there will actually be fewer jobs at the new supplier plant than the old one.

    Reply
    1. True about the headlines. Seats for just EV’s? This is assuming that EV’s will increase the total number of car sales per year, which it won’t unless you somehow find a bunch of random new people with mont who never existed before or normal cars don’t come with seats, have I been standing in my car this entire time 🤔. This will mostly produce seats for ICE cars and some will go to EV’S Its just like Nikola motors, Rivian and Tesla, you say “EV” and your stocks sell. The real news is there is a new seat manufacturer in America. Will they be higher quality seats?

      Reply
  3. Please bring back very comfortable split 60/40 front bench seats as an across the board front seat option. They provide wiggle room, and air circulation comfort.

    The small cramped bucket seats are confining and restrict movement. Also bigger people prefer the bench seats..

    A lot of the gm cars have ergonomic designs that are most comfortable for midgets and minions.

    Reply
    1. Actually not midgets or minions, but smaller in stature Chinese people.

      Reply
      1. Hunters friends most likely

        Reply
    2. I’m one of those bigger people, and I’d not mind a proper bucket seat. What I object to is these TREMENDOUS center consoles hogging all that room and, for what? Decor? The neat-o factor?

      Put the shifter on the column, or a set of buttons or a dial on the dash. As for manual shifters, the car companies built hundreds of millions of cars with floor shifters and somehow, we survived without the blasted “chest freezer” between the seats. Mom’s Tempest and my step-mom’s Volvo were both manual on the floor with no console. Same with every manual shift car I ever owned, from Fiats to BMWs to AMC Pacers (!).

      Reply
      1. Two reasons, as I understand it. Safety is first. It restrains occupants during lateral motion in a side-impact or small offset overlap crash. Problems that can happen is the pelvis slides out that causes the head to go down towards the door. This is why racing seats have tall lower bolsters, and why some vehicles, like the Traverse, have inboard side airbags.

        Second is that a lot of modules are being put there, like subwoofers, audio amps, infotainment computers, airbag computers (close to the vehicle CofG), BCMs. Electronics like self-driving computers, and fancy HVAC airboxes needed for dual zone/rear climate control are using up all the space under the dash, and people don’t want more stuff to intrude on legroom.

        Reply
        1. Heavier interior horizontal steel door side panels would help solve the lateral motion, pelvis slide, head dropping to the door sill issue.

          The huge oversize center console has grown to be over the top. Side airbags are also the key.

          Put all the new age electronic guts in the non door sides of the vehicle, versus inside the center console. With accessible cosmetic covers for any servicing, which in time will be necessary.

          Reply
        2. My ’21 Pacifica has twin AC, all the safety whizbangs and BCMs etc, and a console is an option on the high trim levels. It has a pedestal with two cup holders and a bit of storage. Nothing in the way of my knees.

          If consoles were there as some requirement for safety, Tahoes, Suburban, and Yukonz would not have a 60/40 bench option.

          Reply
          1. Wholeheartedly concur with Gentle Grizzly’s safety argument on the current 60/40 bench seat option on the Suburban, Tahoe, Yukon.

            Driver fatigue in a cramped bucket seat not allowing wiggle room and air circulation is a serious safety consideration.

            A lot of drivers ” power drive ” on long trips. You want to make the driver as comfortable as possible. Thank God for shoulder rub or rumble strips along the white fog lines, to wake up drousey drivers.

            The 60/40 seat from my experience of driving several million miles, in many different vehicles since 1968, is the most safest and comfortable seat option.

            Reply
          2. Your vehicles support my point: IIHS doesn’t test Tahoes, Suburbans, and Yukons because their sales volumes are relatively low. Even then, the manufacturer makes the point that the vast majority of those vehicles are sold with the front buckets, and therefore they are tested in that configuration, see the Silverado or F-150.

            Your minivan has a transverse engine and a high seating position, and isn’t comparable to a RWD where they need the transmission tunnel. BMW sedans are the perfect example of stuff you have to put in the center, since the HVAC system pretty much occupies the entire center dash. If you ever need to service the heater on those, that’s an 8 hour job.

            Reply
            1. BMW, VW, Daimler build fine vehicles, but the Germans put too much complexity into the parts compositions of their vehicles. I bet that BMW dash R & I to service the HVAC system has a bazillion fasteners.

              Bucket seats are style items, as well as big center consoles. They are style items in vogue. Not practical. Just like the practicality of growing and maintaining a beard and donning a face mask in an agonizing long drawn out pandemic.

              I guess style rules and sells. It’s all about how you can justify it. The cigarette companies learned this years ago.

              BTW: Actual meaning of BMW = Bill Me Whatever.
              HVAC dash service ex parts, $140.00 per hour labor X 8 hours = $1,120.00.

              Reply
    3. Fellow fatass here. Couldn’t agree more with the 60/40 bench seat. My 2003 Silverado had them and they were great.

      Reply
  4. Imagine what it will be like in 20 yrs.?
    Glad I won’t be around!!
    Remember the Jetsons…. coming your way.

    Reply
  5. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

Leave a comment

Cancel