Almost a year after General Motors announced its investment project to manufacture the Chevy Joy in Colombia, the automaker officially started production of the Joy in the South American country.
GM’s South American subsidiary held the official ceremony for the Chevy Joy‘s start of regular production on March 15th at the GM Colmotores plant in the city of Bogotá, together with some Colombian authorities. Thus, the company completes the $50M investment that modernized the light vehicle production line of the Colombian complex, with a total of 24 new robots and body molds to stamp the parts locally.
“GM’s entire business plan in Colombia focuses, on the one hand, on promoting a reindustrialization that serves as a bridge to strengthen production, supply chain and vehicle assembly,” said President and CEO of GM South America, Santiago Chamorro. “With the start of Joy production, GM not only remains one of the leaders in the Colombian automotive market, but is also committed to generating a memorable social impact,” he added.
In particular, the Chevy Joy’s official start of production reactivated the light vehicle line of the GM Colmotores plant that had been inactive since the end of 2021, when the company stopped assembling the Chevy Spark GT. As such, the facility had been dedicated exclusively to the production of Chevrolet’s line of N-Series commercial trucks and buses based on technology from commercial vehicle maker Isuzu.
The first Chevy Joy manufactured in Colombia was a silver five-door hatchback, which rolled off the assembly line with the symbolic license plate “Joy 001” and the “made in Colombia” stamp. The Joy is also produced in a four-door sedan body style, a rebadged and repackaged variant of the first-generation Chevy Onix, and the Bow Tie brand’s entry-level vehicle in select South American countries.
For the Chevy Joy’s production start in Colombia, GM has created 300 new jobs at the Colmotores plant, increasing the industrial capacity of the factory, which expects to produce some 35,000 units of the vehicle in the first year. The automaker confirmed that 30 percent of that volume will be destined to supply the Colombian market, while the remaining 70 percent will be exported to countries such as Argentina, Ecuador, and Peru.
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Comments
The front shares design elements from the Sonic.
i agree with Dan B gm should wise up and give the people a vehicle they can afford you don.t need all of those fancy smanchy gadgets in their cars so people can get into accidents while going down the road playing with them .and have the things going bad so we have to pay the dealers big bucks to repair them .GENE M
This car is specific to Colombia and other Latin American countries, it’s already obsolete in many ways. The new 2024 Aveo from China should also be built in Colombia with Mexico and Brazil providing parts for their markets.
Looks like this has already been a failure. Closing the factory as of today’s news.