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GM Authority

Construction At GM Design Center Expansion Progressing

GM is currently putting an expansion on its Michigan-based design center, with construction on the project scheduled for completion before the end of 2023.

Construction on the new design center began back in 2018, however the project was soon put on the backburner as GM shifted its resources to the development of new battery-electric vehicles. The automaker had intended to restart construction on the project in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it once again, with work on the sprawling facility officially restarting last spring.

GM CEO Mary Barra shared a series of images on her Twitter page this week showing the progress on the design center expansion. In the tweets, Barra said that the majority of projects assigned to the new studio will be EVs. The large facility, believed to be the largest of its type in the world, will also provide “more room for advanced design, industrial design and other teams driving the growth of our technology platforms,” she said.

“I’m so pleased to see the team’s rapid progress as we continue delivering beautifully designed and executed EVs that customers love,” Barra also said.

The new design center, which will be called GM Design West, will feature an open concept workspace with assigned desks and almost no walls. The automaker says the advanced new design center will help speed up the design and development of its battery-electric product by giving its design teams additional workspace. The expansion is expected to add roughly 360,000 square feet of additional office and workspace at the GM Warren Tech Center campus in Michigan.

A GM Advance Design center in China

The expanded design center is the final component of a multi-year, $1 billion investment in the Warren Tech Center that also saw it build a new vehicle engineering center at the site, along with a new alternative energy center and a pre-production operation center.

Construction on GM Design West is expected to be complete by the fourth quarter of 2023. The facility will house individual design studios for the Buick, Cadillac Chevrolet and GMC brands.

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Sam loves to write and has a passion for auto racing, karting and performance driving of all types.

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Comments

  1. A couple of thoughts:

    1. Barra says: “ I’m so pleased to see the team’s rapid progress as we continue delivering beautifully designed and executed #EVs that customers love.”.

    That should really say “…as we begin to deliver beautifully designed and executed #EVs that customers will hopefully love.” as GM has really only delivered Bolts and they were all recalled and I’m not sure after that fiasco, anybody loves them. Maybe in the future GM will deliver much-loved EV products but they haven’t delivered much of anything yet.

    2. Could this Design Center expansion have anything to do with the on/off/on caginess about the Cellitiq? It’s supposed to be built at the Tech Center so might this project be creating a space for that to occur and it’s delays have delayed the Cellistiq itself?

    3. I hope the addition will be a fitting one that will not detract from the Eero Saarinen-designed masterpiece that is the Tech Center. Adding on to it is like trying to expand upon a Renoir or Monet. Saarinen was a magnificent talent and I’d hate to see an unworthy addition erected.

    Reply
    1. “That should really say “…as we begin to deliver beautifully designed and executed #EVs that customers will hopefully love.” as GM has really only delivered Bolts and they were all recalled and I’m not sure after that fiasco, anybody loves them. Maybe in the future GM will deliver much-loved EV products but they haven’t delivered much of anything yet.”

      GM is a global company, GM has more EVs in other markets, not just in the US. Also plenty of Bolt owners still love their Bolts and I’ve seen plenty of such remarks on subreddit posts and on forums.
      GM also had plenty of PHEVs in its history and she may also be counting those as EVs in this statement.

      Reply
    2. I look at this thing every day out our window at work. As a huge fan of the history of the Tech Center I think this building a slap in the face to Eero Saarinen. It blocks key sight lines on the campus to the design dome. It could have been placed better!

      Reply
  2. “I’m so pleased to see the team’s rapid progress as we continue delivering beautifully designed and executed EVs that customers love,” Barra also said. >>> Well, for sure, she does not read GM Authority or pretend not doing. Otherwise products would be beautiful, which are not.

    Reply
  3. should invest in a “CHIP” factory so you can build a complete vehicle at time of delivery

    Reply
  4. Ford is also building a new design center, and will tear down the existing one to do it.

    Designers will work in temporary spaces until the new structure is ready.

    Reply
  5. I noticed in the last sentence that Cadillac and Chevrolet did NOT have a comma between them.
    Is this a typo or is someone trying to tell us something??
    Just a comment from me as seeing how GM is also NOT the company that I grew up loving.
    M. B. is an idiot in my opinion.

    Reply
  6. Churchill: ‘However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.’

    It’s fairly easy for a CEO to say “build a design center, re-tool a production line, design an EV”, and those things happen. GM/Barra have spent BILLIONS in recent years spending money.

    What they haven’t done in recent years is sell a lot of cars. Yes, GM has made decent money, but no where near as many cars as they’re capable of making.

    So, it’s easy to build stuff – what’s much harder is to develop cars that customers buy in volume.

    GM has encountered huge challenges in recent years – the transition to EV, developing Cruise/AV, Covid, chip shortages. And GM faces competition in all those endeavors. And GM is in pretty good shape as they work through all the challenges.

    Still – it’s easy to say build this and that. Quite another to make it all work, and work well. Execution. Execution takes talent and skill. We’ll see if senior GM management get it done.

    ‘However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.’

    Execute. Get those results. We’ll see………

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  7. If I was calling the shots at GM I would have located the design center on a bench overlooking Los Angeles. Had the Gang Studio in Chicago do the architectural design work.

    Southern Cal is to automotive design as to what Houston is to oil and gas equipment or what Las Vegas is to entertainment and conventions.

    Warren Michigan is a flatland industrial metalworking suburb of Detroit. The new GM design center is a squared gray box. Bland and nothing exciting, in fact cold, boring and sterile. You need a undulating complex with zip and pizazz. Apple and Google have achieved this on the Bay peninsula. Steve Jobs, RIP, was an industrial design genius. He had the geeks like the Woz design the guts of Apple products. The GM design center expansion is not a Wow, like Cummins facilities in Columbus, Indiana or Frank Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Family Products facility in Racine.

    A design center’s total assets or brainpower leave the facility each night and return in the morning. You want to attract and nourish this brainpower. The California climate is ideal for this. Hence the design and artistic success of Disney and the various studios, Space Park in Long Beach and the theme parks. In fact if I were GM, I would consider a collaboration with Disney for vehicle design.
    Lastly you need a location that offers a variety of things for your design brainpower such as recreational opportunities, cultural opportunities, lifestyle opportunities. You have the ocean, mountains, desert, valleys in Socal. Ethnic variety for dining. Sunset Blvd. for nightlife, a variety of countercultures, a huge variety of weekend events and you are close to Las Vegas. counterculture parks for the kids. LBTQ culture for that very creative segment.

    In Warren, Michigan your big events are watching the Kroger and Walmart trucks unload on Saturday nights. Lastly you have a long cold gray winter. Bowling anyone?

    GM, please contact me for gratis advice.

    Reply
    1. Sorry but Warren and the Tech Center has been the focal point of GM design for over 65 years. We don’t need a bunch of Granola eating California folks designing product!

      Reply
  8. Motown and Barry Gordy moved to LA from Detroit. Harris moved from Cleveland to Florida. Larry Flynt of Flynt Publicatons moved from Cincinnati to Wilshire Blvd., the Warner Brothers moved from Youngstown, Ohio to Los Angeles, Walt and Roy Disney moved from Missouri to Los Angeles. Just a few examples of companies needing creative brainpower moving to better locations, with a warmer climate, for better creative brainpower nourishment and thriving.

    Since GM has gone global, they need to relocate out of Hank the Duces Ren Center into a global international flavored location like LA. Build a corporate campus in the LA hills using the Gang Studio of Chicago to design it, then begin to rock like Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, and Jamie Dimon.

    Caterpillar is doing the same with an eventual move of their central brainpower out of Illinos. Caterpillar corporate brainpower is now out of Peoria.

    It’s a changing world out there.

    Reply
    1. Sorry but they already relocated Cadillac back to Michigan to where it belongs from NY. Detroit IS the Motor City!

      Reply
      1. The relocation of Cadillac to NYC was a failed wet dream. Most Manhattan dwellers don’t have cars. Checker Motors should have relocated to NYC. Checker sedans were a comfortable, safe, roomy cab. Bring back the Checker with an electric propell.

        Reply
  9. I think your comment is fascinating but tongue in cheek. Of course, GM already has a design studio in Cali, as they do in China, Europe and other places they market. Locating in Warren may not offer the surfer/Hollywood lifestyle, but it allows designers to interact with engineers and suppliers located in and around Motown, interactions they need to be sure their brainstorms can actually be produced. The new extension could have a sunroom, however.

    Reply

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