The former GM Lordstown plant in Ohio has certainly been through the wringer since General Motors pulled the plug on Chevy Cruze production. With recent news that Lordstown Motors – the EV startup that purchased the plant from The General – has filed for bankruptcy, GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra admits that the closure of the Lordstown plant could’ve been handled better.
During an interview, Barra remarked on the closure of the Lordstown plant, which took place after General Motors ceased production of the Chevy Cruze in 2019. Although the plant was unable to efficiently manufacture future GM vehicles, Barra states that the Detroit-based automaker should’ve offered all Lordstown employees jobs at other plants, as there were plenty of alternative jobs available.
It’s worth noting that Barra stated that a majority of Lordstown employees did end up finding new jobs at various other GM plants. Through its joint venture with LG Energy Solution, GM also chose to build its first Ultium Cells battery manufacturing plant in the region as well.
Looking forward, it’s uncertainly what the future holds for the Lordstown plant. Electric vehicle startup Lordstown Motors just recently filed for bankruptcy, and is suing Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn for fraudulent conduct and misleading promises.
Even before that, the Lordstown plant has working through a turbulent few years. Lordstown Motors purchased the plant from GM at a discounted rate, while General Motors received roughly eight million shares of the EV startup. However, following a short-seller report in early 2021 that eventually lead to cofounder and CEO Steve Burns resigning, General Motors sold its remaining stake in Lordstown.
After the dust settled on that fiasco, Lordstown Motors began acquisition talks with Foxconn, who eventually ended up purchasing the plant for $230 million, with an additional $50 million investment in the electric vehicle manufacturer. The acquisition was completed in May 2022.
Now, the current legal situation has the Lordstown plant’s future clouded in uncertainty once again.
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Comments
Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Ya, there’s a lot GM could and should have done differently.
How about this. Barra and every exec at GM, Ford and what’s left of Chrysler corp should be limited to a salary of $500,000 max with zero stock options. Zero bonus. Just a flat half million in wages. If they don’t perform, then they get fired just like any other employee. Take that massive savings and they could have kept this plant open and producing vehicles instead of using China, Korea and Mexico. Then maybe more buyers would purchase GM products.
While that sounds good you would have a revolving door of CEOs. They get 1 year of experience and then leave for a better paying job. I think a better measure would be ro outlaw stock buy backs. Gm executives get tons of incentives based on stock price. Instead of making better cars and selling them by investing in the company they just buy a million shares and the stock price jumps up to meet their incentive.
If you don’t like Mary you should see what $500k would get you as a leader.
Generally Mary has traveled a difficult Pat trying to keep ICE going and develop the EV models being forced on the automakers.
Just look at the mess Ford is in. Their leader has mucked the the whole deal. Do not mistake the Maverick and Raptors as success as it is too little to save all the jobs Ford cut.
GM should’ve handled a lot of things better. Imagine if we still had Saab & if GM would have let them be the brand they always were! Saab would be so popular right now. Alas, GM does GM things. It’s truly a shame sometimes.
ers1027,
Why would Saab be so popular now? They were never popular to begin with. Why do you think Saab AB wanted to sell in the first place? Saab is actually lucky gm kept them afloat for another twenty years.
At least gm gave Saab a chance by selling to Victor Mueller/Spyker. Unfortunately Victor didn’t like to pay his bills to gm or his people. It’s a shame gm didn’t give Pontiac or Oldsmobile the same chance by selling those divisions.
Am I sticking up for gm management, not hardly. Barra and Reuss are just branches of the Roger Smith tree. Over eighty years at gm between the two of them and they have never seen year over year market share growth, only decline.
Saab AB was always a defense company and needed a way to diversify post-war. Manufacturing cars was one attempt. They found other ways to remain a successful defense business in the 50’s, 60’s, and so on. Manufacturing automobiles was never their priority. Saab AB remains a successful defense enterprise today. That’s the easy answer.
My speculative answer is that Saab Automobile would be direct answer to Tesla if they shifted focus to develop an EV around the same time as Tesla’s infancy. Saab could have been a very strong EV competitor to Polestar, Rivian, etc. If the Hummer’s identity translates strong as an EV then imagine what they could have done with Saab! Hindsight is 20/20, though.
Yup. What ers1027 just said!!
Very interesting take and you’re spot on. Saab would be an EV leader. Plus they would’ve had experience building cars unlike Tesla. Now I wish Saab was still around.
gm had a fifteen year head start on Tesla with the EV1. Unfortunately gm management had zero vision beyond the end of their nose.
They also had zero infrastructure at that time.
As did Tesla, and somehow they made it work.
Tesla got lots of angel investors and stayed afloat barely on governments emissions credits that did not exist during the ev1 era
you realize that Tesla is using a plant in CA that was a GM plant – the sister plant to Lordstown – built at the same time – same layout, etc…..?
they literally walked away from the fastest assembly plant in the world at the time.
Lol 😆 the EV1 to a modern EV is like a model T to 2020 Chevy Malibu…Let’s see liquid acid batteries, maybe a fifty mile range if you where lucky, no mass production, and back then it an experiment EVs where not being touted as the better then ICE or was there any need at that time to replace it no government pressure to give up ICE cars in the 90s .I personally think think the oil companies had something to do with all of a sudden putting the hammer down on early EV cars but then again there was a very rare electric Corvette in the 80s but nobody back then thought hey I need an EV like they do now. But saying the EV1 would lead to modern EVs no I don’t think so and I imagine one day when Tesla is big enough they might be union to who knows
Ruthless GM seems to have forgotten what the government of this country did for them during there bankruptcy. I remember reading when it was announced they were shutting it down at the same time announcing the new blazer would be built in Mexico What a kick in the gut for lordstown that was. A child would have more sense. Why don’t you build that new trax in the states ? The volume it sells should be enough for one American plant considering how many vehicles you build of that one platform
Why GM does not buy the Bankrupt Saab back?
The current Saab 400 horsepower, Emily project EV vehicle, with in-wheel propulsion will benefit GM EV Line up with 600 miles per charge performance & once again bring tremendous infusion of know how & great design skills, as they did before
I believe it was Mary Buick Envision Made in China-Barra who pulled the plug on the Chevy Cruze, that rated very high in quality. This is vintage Mary Buick Envision Made in China-Barra, eliminate the budget models and replace them with more expensive models.
I worked at Lordstown 2011-2019 I’m not sure what Chevy Cruze you are talking about. I would not call the Cruze a high quality car, not from what I witnessed there.
Jeremy IMO THE equinox which is aemmmm (clearing my throat) ASSEMBLED IN MEXICO NOT MADE IN MEXICO… is a much better quality car then the Cruze was… The Cruze always looked a little cheap especially the second generation it looked like a fat Chevy Caviler and for a hatcg back there was not all that much room. That being said in GM’s defense the Cruze did replace the cobalt which it was miles ahead of… The other thing to is if Lords town was such a great plant then why did no other car manufacturer offer to buy it… Expect a start up like Lords town motors?!
Most of the 100s of plants gm closed since the 1980s were not bought by other automakers
No other manufacturer bought it because it’s possible that Mary Buick Envision Made in China-Barra was asking too much for it.
I don’t know about the Cruze not being a quality vehicle. Several friends purchased them and were very happy with them. They would have bought new ones, I believe, if they were still being made.
I’m talked to many Chevy Cruze owners at many car shows, they had no complaints about the car, and were very upset that Mary Buick Envision Made in China-Barra pulled the plug on it. In fact, in my neck of the woods, there are plenty of Chevy Cruzes still being driven, even the first generation.
If you want to talk about GM and Saab… Then how about Jaguar, land rover, Volvo… Ford almost and when I say almost I mean the grenade had an angel push it in the other direction, destroyed these companies when Ford owned them back in the 2000s. The Jag Xtype while a good looking car it was a rebadged for, land rovers sharing parts with other Fords, and I don’t know why they had an interest in Volvo they hardly designed anything new. At least GM tried with SAAB and the cars where pretty good looking and had great engines and for all you pre GM SAAB fans I new a mechanic who worked on the older Saabs the engine while good where so weirdly designed that you had to know how to work on them. To answer another question the reason why Buick is made in China is because that’s where brand sells a lot more then they do in this country. So it’s not just the GM way a lot corporations do it this way…
Guess gm never closed a plant before Lordstown. Geez they are leaderless.
I am shocked all you experts are still here posting and not making $15 million some place with all your good ideas😉
Look is there ever really a good plant closing? No. The media and the web would blast this no matter what.
Truth is most all union workers offers of jibes at other GM plants many in the region. Yes sone may have had to relocate but that is how it has been for over 60 years.
Second this region has been a major union hot bed and have a rep for very tough unions. This is why nearly every industry left and only a prison came to the region. Most mfgs want to avoid the area. GM lasted as longer than the others.
This plant and complex was the largest in the country. Over time it was reduced in size and lines being closed. It just was not efficient.
There was no way to avoid what happened. Moving other lines here would not fix the plant issues.
The best they could have done is a slow reduction in staff and production. It would have slowed the impact but it still would have happened.
GM could have done better PR on this but timing and the speed it was done just made it a field day for the media.
This plant was just a small bit of the valleys industry when steel ruled. Now there is no major steel nor has been for 50 years.
Many in the area have driven to Akron, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Erie to work.
If there were simple easy solutions this stuff would never happen. But so often plans are never 100% spot on as if you could predict the future you would never need to work.
Lol, I worked at Lordstown and five other GM facilities, Lordstown was not the largest shop in the country. It may have been on the largest piece of unused property in the country, but it seriously lacked floor space for building product. That is a huge reason the Blazer wasn’t built there. They would have had to re-engineer the the entire body/paint conveyor system to fit any product taller than the Cruze. Management and the UAW both informed me that the second gen Cruze hatchback wasn’t built in Ohio because it was too tall to fit through the Paint ELPO system. I also have access to the available square footage of GM assembly shops and Spring Hill is and was the biggest in North America. Lordstown may have held the tittle in the 60’s and 70’s, but by the time it closed there were at least 4 newer and larger footprint shops in North America.
It was the largest but over the years they tore down the other parts like the van plant etc. that foot print was full in the past.
The plants death was like cancer and the plant died a bit every year.
But the rest is true the plant was not suited for any new products that were coming with out major investments.
GM still has too much production capability.
If true they can close plants in Mexico and China instead of the US
You actually bought that? LOL!
Can’t fit anything bigger.
Lordstown Motors was going to come in and build a truck right away.
There’s a reason people outside of the UAW bubble think we’re a bunch of idiots
Last I checked Lordstown motors hasn’t built any real trucks there either.
Lordstown Elpo tank was too small for the Blazer but it was big enough to fit the full sized truck that Lordstown Motors was making.
You EV folks will regret biting on the electric vehicle is best hook. This is nothing more than another fanatical scam that will make certain people very wealthy at your own expense. If electric is so damned good why is it being crammed down your throats vs you making a personal choice on which is something that fits your needs. I think this tactic is used in those countries which aren’t exactly of American ideology. So much for a once free country.
Max: You are way off on that one. First, I currently own a 2023 Bolt EV and it’s been so far above my expectations that it’s not even funny. I’ve also had a 2021 Volvo PHEV (plug in hybrid). I also leased a 2015 Chevy Spark EV which was a fantastic car back in 2015. In between there, before them and currently I have and do own gas vehicles. I’ve owned diesels. I even had one traditional hybrid (non-plug in).
EV’s are far from being what you describe. There’s so many benefits to having my Bolt that I won’t take up that much space on here. I truly am a believer in the EV. And yet, this country still offers buyers a mega amount of choices that are not EV. You will be able to buy non-EV’s for many years yet. Do I feel EV’s are for everyone? NO. But an EV would work perfectly for somewhere in the range of 80 to 90% of drivers on the road today.
If buying an EV is your personal choice then so be it. It is not my personal choice. When it comes a time when 4 volts is all you can have to power your EV you might see my point. (in part)
My real point is that it’s not the US Government’s job to stick it’s nose into what type vehicle I choose to purchase or drive. I’m not real big on building the Chinese economy while the US loses jobs in wholesale numbers. If pollution is your concern then perhaps the borders should be secured.
Wow. Just a whole lot of ignorance in just a small amount of words. How sad.
I bet if you live in an area where the hurricanes are getting way worse, or where the flooding is getting way worse, or where the fires are getting way worse, or where the mud slides are getting way worse, or where the ocean levels are rising and your property was going under water, or if your town was flattened by one of the many more tornadoes happening in areas they never used to happen, or if everything in your area was dying from the worse draughts, or maybe if you live in Texas where they are now getting more extreme weather (ice/cold or massive heat). I’d bet my life that you would be crying about the US Government not doing enough to help. Yup, you sound like one of those.
BTW, did you even read what I wrote? EV’s are not for everyone? And yet you come back like I just said every person on earth should be driving an EV. I’ll bet you haven’t even driven an EV have you?
I don’t see too many coastal areas under water in the US.
Bottom line, there is nothing that can reverse climate change if it indeed is a phenomenon. We could take all the vehicles off US roads and it would not make one bit of difference as India and China continue to pollute and build coal-fired power plants. To think that government can change the climate is naive.
So you are the type who say’s self checkouts create jobs? Lol
GM should have never gotten rid of its Saturn division. Those vehicles were some of the best build by GM and very popular yet they shut that division down. I wish that the Roger Penske deal would have worked because they would now be far more popular then any GM vehicles.
Remember the GM playbook, once a product is built right, it gets discontinued.
In this day and age politicians build cars. Look what’s in charge. Lol
China and stockholders own GM. When the obungler bailed GM out, he was paying China.
Damn I wonder how I missed this topic. GM Lordstown plant would have been integral in GM’s future compact and small crossover production. Now even Barra has second thoughts about how they handled the plant, now look at that. They should be ashamed of themselves for their persisting myopia…
I worked there. I made the sign that’s sitting on the Cruze roof in the first picture.
I am amazed at the negative comments from people that don’t know what they are talking about.
GM was saved from bankruptcy in 2009 ‘to keep good paying jobs in America’ per Rick Wagoner. That cost the American taxpayers an 11 billion dollar loss.
10 years later while GM was making record profits, they placed a new vehicle, the Blazer, in Mexico and told the employees at lordstown they don’t have a product for them. GM didn’t even have the balls to tell the employees the plant was closed until a year later. Remember unallocated???
Over 8,000 people lost their jobs.
GM lied when they committed to keeping Lordstown open until at least 2028 employing 3,500 people in exchange for a 60 million dollar tax incentive.
GM defaulted and closed the plant but didn’t fully pay back the 60 million. That sounds like criminal to me.
To those that still don’t get it. I hope you don’t have to watch your job get offshored or outsourced to understand.
I’m sure all of those Americans who have died in war only to have their country betray their children wouldn’t be too impressed. Meanwhile, campaign contributions go forth.
You may “think” that the obungler was bailing out GM, the reality is that the obungler was bailing out CHINA.
As a GM retiree who worked at the Lordstown Complex from 1968-1998 and realized the benefits that an assembly plant provides I find Mary Barra’s comments shallow! Communities in Mahoning and Trumbull county who survived the steel industry’s demise were delt the death blow by the Lordstown closure. Schools, churches and small businesses have felt the domino effect. Many of our children have left the area taken there skills, education and vibrancy to other communities leaving us a shell of what we once were!
All the Mary “ILuvChina” Barra remarks crack me up
It’s a shame the lordstown plant closed.
From an outsider looking in I think gm wanted out of a plant that cost more to run than other plants.
As I said it cost so many people good jobs.
They could have retrofit it but they didn’t want to.
If they didn’t pay back thier bail out the government should have made them before closing plant .
Mary has hairy arm pits.
Bill Clinton sold GM to China in 1997