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GM Canada Pauses Plan To Manufacture EV Motors At St. Catharines Plant

In February 2023, GM Authority reported that the GM St. Catharines plant in Canada was scheduled to begin producing GM Ultium Drive motors alongside ICE-powered engines in 2025. However, the Detroit-based automaker may now take a step back from this timeline.

According to a report from Welland Tribune, GM Canada is reevaluating the timing of its plans to build EV motors at the propulsion facility as it continues to retool the plant. Notably, Unifor Local 199 President Jordan Lennox stated that The General has yet to officially inform the Canadian union when EV motor production would begin and claimed that approximately 300 unionized employees will be laid off during the retooling process.

Photo of GM St. Catharines Plant in Canada.

“Work continues to retool the V6 engine and six-speed transmission lines at St. Catharines Propulsion Plant to make way for EV drive units, and we are assessing the timing for that transition,” GM Canada Corporate and Internal Communications Director Natalie Nankil remarked. “We will continue with our long-standing strategy of building to demand for our propulsion technologies.”

Interestingly, this decision comes as electric vehicle consideration in Canada has fallen from 2023 levels.

In other St. Catharines-related news, GM Canada was fined $325,000 over the death of a plant worker after he fell about 10 feet from a milling machine onto the concrete below. He was reportedly replacing a pneumatic cylinder when he fell and had previously worked for General Motors for 47 years.

For reference on the GM St. Catharines facility itself, the Canadian plant currently manufactures GM’s Generation-V Small-Block engines, the GF6 six-speed transmission, and the Corvette C8‘s eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. As part of the aforementioned retooling for Ultium Drive motors, General Motors expects that the initiative will support roughly 500 jobs and enable the production of more than 400,000 EV motors per year.

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As a typical Florida Man, Trey is a certified GM nutjob who's obsessed with anything and everything Corvette-related.

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Comments

  1. dundundun the EV train continues to lose steam

    Reply
    1. It’s not surprising you think that since the reporting on the issue has been terrible. First thing, the press doesn’t seem to realize that rate of growth will naturally slow over time since you’re dealing with a change to a larger number each month/quarter.

      But second, when you look at the YOY figures, the lackluster numbers are mainly do to two things. First, GM quit producing the Bolt while the Blazer and Equinox were either just starting or not yet started. Second, Tesla Model 3 sales took a huge noise-dive for some reason (which I haven’t researched since I don’t care about Tesla), despite price cuts. If you factor out those two companies the numbers are actually quite healthy. Nine companies had sales increase over 50%.

      Reply
  2. Low demand for the EV’s and they axed a very good v-6 ICE to make room for it. Another silly decision.

    Reply
    1. For cars moving to the 2.7 turbocharged engine makes sense. For trucks not. They should have at least kept the V6 an option on the Colorado/Canyon.

      Reply
    2. i have the 6 Cyl in an acadia and a blazer. great engine. Cant imagine the turbo 4 has same experience.

      Reply
      1. Probably the 4 has more HP and torque than your 6 (I haven’t looked it up). The issue for trucks is range when towing a travel trailer on a gas turbocharged vehicle.

        Reply
  3. I’m glad to see they’re still producing the 6 speed transmission. I think the move to more and more gears has been a reliability disaster due to more shifting events. Almost as stupid as the Saturday Night Live 12 blade razor.

    Reply
    1. If I only they were making way to produce a powertrain that consisted soley of a brushless electric motor, a couple of non-shifting reduction gears coupled to a pair of half-shafts…

      Reply
      1. If only. 😉

        That’s one of the reasons I’m looking forward to an EV. That and less routine maintenance. But I’ve had a lot of transmission issues over the years. Manuals and automatics. They’ve been by far the most problematic part of the vehicle for me.

        Reply
    2. The 6 speed transmission production just ended last week and is being removed to make room for the ev motor

      Reply
      1. Read the article again. “Work continues to retool the V6 engine and six-speed transmission lines at St. Catharines Propulsion Plant . . ..” They are just moving things around, so the production stop is temporary.

        Reply
  4. V6 and GF6 speed transmission floor space is being replaced by the Ev drive units .V6 Shut down in January and Gf6 at the end of this week

    Reply
  5. There is a much deeper story here, and it would be nice if the media could put forward ALL the facts! This facility has been in trouble for quite some time due only to the poor management that has taken it over! Smoke and mirrors.

    Reply
  6. Opinion as a GM St. Catharines worker: Things were great until ~2019 when the Oshawa management came to our plant. They wreaked havoc on morale, cut jobs and were ineffective managers. Things got worse with Covid-19 measures and the membership turning against each other over the vaccine mandate with some losing their jobs. The company used Covid as an excuse to make harsh changes to their benefit and never reverted them (job rotation, etc.). The local union is totally weak and ineffective. Then add in the unfortunate deaths of workers (God rest their souls) and things have not been right for a long time. Workers are burned out due to poor work-life balance. We continuously do poorly on Workplace of Choice surveys. Our plant leadership is now just beginning to take this seriously and are panicking. They are trying to boost morale with emotional support dogs and hollow mental health virtue-signalling. I would not be the least bit surprised if this plant was shut down tomorrow. But one thing I can say is, despite how we feel, our work ethic is second to none! And we build GM products with quality in mind because we care about the customer.

    Reply

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