Crain’s Detroit Business reports that there’s a change of plans for the GM Orion assembly plant that’s currently being retooled. It was expected to become a factory exclusively for EVs, but as market demand shifts and tariff threats loom, sources familiar with the matter say GM is reevaluating vehicle segment and powertrain types for the Michigan factory.
“We’re not going to engage in speculation,” GM spokesman Kevin Kelly told Crain’s. “The timing remains consistent with what we have previously said, fall 2026.”
So, it’s still on track for the $4 billion retooling to be complete around the middle of 2026, but that doesn’t tell us the nature of the retooling. According to the original plan, the Orion plant would join Factory Zero in producing the Chevy Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV. While that still may be the case, they probably won’t be the only vehicles built there.
The anonymous sources told Crain’s that hybrid or ICE-powered models could be built at Orion, but that final decision is forthcoming. With General Motors expected to reintroduce plug-in hybrids to North America in 2027, we’re wondering if Orion could be their production site. It may produce plug-in hybrid versions of the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra alongside their EV counterparts, or it could produce something else entirely.
The GM Orion assembly plant has been dormant since the discontinuation of the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV in late 2023. The original plan was for the plant to begin electric truck production as soon as 2024, but the plant reopening was delayed by two years.
We reported in May of 2024 that while the Orion Township expansion was underway, it was starting to look like it would create fewer jobs than originally expected. GM ambitiously anticipated an extra 2,300 new employees being hired when the expansion was complete, but it revised its construction plan to have 40 percent fewer parking spaces than originally planned.
Comments
There should be no dormant or idling plants at this point in time. I’m glad to hear that GM is considering to fill it up with other work. PHEVs and HEVs make sense alongside other EVs.
Even with hybrids, you’re probably talking at bet 40,000 a year in a plant that can produce 300,000 a year. Factory Zero could easily accommodate hybrid and electric pickups. The most likely scenario is that Silverado and Sierra production is moved there from Mexico.
Would be interested in non-plugin hybrid.
GM would need to sell 13,333 vehicles at 100% profit to pay for the 4 billion in retooling the plant. How the heck will they ever get there.
News that surprises no one.
GM badly miscalculated on the EV Sierra/Silverado and there will apparently be no consequences among the SLT for this blunder. I’ve said before and will say once again that EV buyers and pickup truck buyers are two entirely different people. There is virtually no overlap. Barra proudly proclaimed in January of 2022 that GM would have the capacity by 2024 to build 600,000 EV pickups with Orion and Hamtramck. I suppose that also meant she planned to sell that many too. Instead they built about 10,000 last year with some of that number still unsold. What I don’t understand is why there wasn’t better market research conducted to determine whether there were actually 600k buyers per year for electric trucks at $100,000 per copy. A great deal of money was expended and peoples’ lives upended because of this mistake.
I’m glad Orion will get another product and the workers there will perhaps have jobs to go to but the plant hasn’t built anything for 18 months and it obviously will be shut down for at least another year. This is one of many gigantic errors at GM and collectively I think these mistakes are why so many good people in the white collar ranks are being labeled as underperformers and terminated.
Yup, I said way back then that GM was putting far too many eggs in the EV basket. This is a huge error, GM could have been building vehicles that people actually wanted to buy. Who is getting fired?
Yes, I agree EV buyers are not pickup buyers, although nowadays lots of pickups are garage queens. They are purchased by subdivision dwellers who think it makes them look cool and tough. My Silverado has mud on the floor mats and in the tire treads a good bit of the time. It gets washed when I have nothing else to do for a few minutes, it’s a tool, as it was intended to be.
She was appeasing the lefty/libbie crowd and the Biden administration push without moderating thought about a more level portfolio of all fuel system options.
On the other hand, Ford has been brilliant at this.
No hybrids and the all-in decision-making by Barra will go down as 2 of the biggest clubs in automotive history, but she’ll still get her media awards.
We have to face the fact that no matter what companies do or what the government does the U.S. will never be the manufacturing powerhouse that it once was. I am pro U.S.A. made and own nothing but the reliable GM vehicles (you have to do your research before you buy) and I have seen nothing but a slow painful death of this country over many decades. Lies, false hopes, and undelivered expectations, have littered the landscape of this country. It is going to continue to slowly descend while people live in a fantasy world with blinders on. I believe this country is in deep trouble that is why all the tariff talk going on now because the malaise attitude has caught up with us and is unsustainable for any kind of future.