Both internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric vehicle (EV) powerplants will be built at the GM St. Catharines Plant in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, according to a statement made by GM Canada President Marissa West.
The statement confirms the St. Catharines Plant will simultaneously produce V8 and V6 engines as well as GM Ultium Drive motors going forward, Automotive News said in a report.
GM has not yet publicly indicated when the retooling necessary to produce Ultium motors will begin or when it will be completed. However, Marissa West said the facility “will play a critical role” in GM’s electrification plans. The General intends to produce one million EVs by 2025, in addition to introducing 30 new electric vehicle models worldwide and offering EVs in one third of automotive segments by the same date.
Switching part of the St. Catharines facility to EV motor production will present GM with new challenges. AutoForecast Solutions vice president Sam Fiorani told Automotive News the plan “is an interesting retooling because we don’t have much experience, changing a plant from internal combustions to motors,” adding that “there’s no real measurement of it yet.”
Fiorani pointed out that the St. Catharines’ retooling will be an ongoing process as GM steps down ICE vehicle production and steps up EV production over time. More of the production facility will be switched over to electric engine manufacture as GM’s lineup switches over progressively to EVs.
Eventually, electric engine production will “squeeze out” V8 and V6 engine production, leaving the St. Catharines Plant as a pure Ultium Drive motor facility. In the meantime, it will remain as a hybrid factory making both types of propulsion systems. The plant is expected to build 400,000 of the EV motors needed for GM’s initial 2025 million-EV goal.
The workforce at St. Catharines currently numbers approximately 1,100, while only 500 workers will be needed to operate it as an EV motor facility. Electric vehicle motors are simpler to build than complex internal combustion engines, requiring a smaller workforce. However, many of the facility’s current workers are nearing retirement age, potentially smoothing the transition to a lower number of employees.
While GM recently retooled the GM CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Canada in a record-setting seven months to produce the all-electric BrightDrop Zevo 600 delivery van, the Ultium Drive motors for the Zevo 600 are produced elsewhere. According to the nonprofit Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing, the much more involved process of switching production lines from internal combustion engine to electric motor manufacture could take two to three years.
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Comments
You must change the statement of “electric engine” in the entire article to “electric motor” because an engine uses thermal energy to create motion while a motor can be thermal or electro-magnetic.
I did learn something today, thanks.
Not really, this is just EV talk. Detroit was never the “engine city”.
What I learned was the difference between an electric motor and an electric engine. Detroit didn’t factor into the equation.
Irocz… actually Cleveland has as much claim to that as Detroit does. The first really practical diesel locomotive was created when GM merged two cleveland companies to make EMD. One of them was a grandchild of the Winton motor company which made the first “mass produced” automobiles in the 1890’s- like 1500 a year.
Actually, GM Owner, Engine does not just mean internal combustion. It just means the device converts some form of energy to mechanical energy– usually motion. The term you were looking for when you were splitting hairs was “heat engine”. That is an engine that converts thermal energy to mechanical energy, so its efficiency is limited by the Carnot efficiency. By the way, the most efficient heat engines- nukes- are about 40- 45% efficient. Gas cars are typically 25- 30%.
Actually, Duffer – in the context of this article – and in fact this entire Web domain – an engine is a ‘heat engine.’ This discussion is about vehicle powertrains, afterall.
The actual definition of engine is far beyond the scope of the vehicle context. At its most basic, an engine does work. There are UI engines, graphic engines, math engines, object-oriented engines, reason engines, etc – including the famous Ada Lovelace Difference Engine. Most of real world engines have absolutely nothing to do with mechanical energy or motion.