General Motors announced on Tuesday plans to invest roughly $4 billion in its U.S. manufacturing operations over the next two years. The money will be allocated to three GM production facilities: Orion Assembly in Michigan, Fairfax Assembly in Kansas, and Spring Hill Manufacturing in Tennessee. Crain’s Detroit Business reports that, according to sources familiar with the matter, approximately half of that investment is going to the Orion plant.
The sources also say that this brings GM’s recent investment into Orion up to about $6 billion, since the automaker has already spent around $4 billion on its original plan to convert it to an EV factory. The plan was to use Orion in conjunction with Factory Zero to produce BT1-based electric trucks and SUVs, namely, the Chevy Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV.
The shift is motivated by a cooler-than-expected demand for large, expensive electric trucks, with GM having sold less than 10,000 electric trucks in 2024. GM estimates that the capacity at Factory Zero is enough to meet demand for BT1-based models, which also includes the GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Escalade IQ. Meanwhile, Orion will be a production site for the next generation of full-size pickup trucks and SUVs starting in 2027.
Since this plan makes GM’s promise of 2,300 jobs at Orion sound more realistic, the UAW is praising the move. “The writing is on the wall: the race to the bottom is over,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “We have excess manufacturing capacity at our existing plants, and auto companies can easily bring good union jobs back to the U.S.”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer also praised the move for “bringing more auto manufacturing back home to Michigan.” She added, “We don’t care what you drive – gas, diesel, hybrid, or electric – as long as it’s made in Michigan.”
GM states that it operates 50 manufacturing plants and parts facilities across the U.S., directly and indirectly supporting around one million American jobs. Looking ahead, The General plans to sustain its aggressive capital strategy through 2027, with annual investments forecasted between $10 billion and $12 billion, balancing EV development with support for its ICE portfolio.
The latest $4 billion investment announcement follows another made late last May: the automaker would allocate $888 million towards the production of its next-gen V8 engine at the company’s Tonawanda Propulsion Plant in Buffalo, New York. The forthcoming sixth-gen GM Small Block will be cradled by The General’s full-size truck and SUV models.
The Honda brand has a powerful reputation.
Bear with us on the math.
Owners of affected vehicles may notice reduced brake performance.
They've got a good shot at it.
Tons of Cadillac EV buyers are new to the brand.
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Time for a compact ICE pickup truck, again (S10). Wake up Mary.
Agree, thank goodness Mary reaches mandatory retirement age in Dec.
December of next year; Christmas Eve of 2026.
GM may reach bankruptcy by then?
S10 would be fantastic.
Why not Lordstown plant?
Gm would need to pay 1Billion+ to reacquire just the building-FoxConn owns it now, they gave it away for 40M, they could see that LM had no clue, they prolly hoped to catch it in Chapter7 fire sale- but deeper pockets scooped it up
hard to believe someone can make that much money and ruin a company ...has no idea what the public wants and needs...has no forward thinking when it comes to every aspect of vehicle manufacturing ....
we all miss you ::bob lutz !!!
I think when someone is running a car company and is paid $29 million a year, they have no ability to understand their consumers and apparently could not fathom, for two years, why they weren't buying GM's $100,000 EV pickup trucks. Barra "ramped" GM to build 600,000 of those trucks per year but she is so far removed from actual truck buyers that she apparently never saw a problem with that plan. The rest of us, living in the real world, knew from the outset that GM was never going to sell that many electric trucks at those prices. Obviously they were too expensive but beyond that, truck buyers and EV buyers are two very different consumers.
The American people, purchasing only 10,000 of these vehicles last year, have now issued a massive wake-up call to Barra and GM. Therefore Orion is being "re-allocated", as she likes to characterize it to build more affordable and desirable ICE trucks. The dream of selling 600,000 EV trucks at six-figures each is, for now, lying in ruin.
I suspect the apparent 25 sales of the $350,000 Celestiq will constitute a similar wake-up call for GM. We'll see what happens there but I think the American people shook their collective heads there too and said "good luck" with Barra's plan to turn the Chevy Equinox (BEV3) platform into a homely electric Cadillac hatchback that could be sold for Rolls Royce money. For $29 million, the CEO should be just a bit more savvy.
Right on. Mary is in charge of the race to the bottom. If it wasn’t for trump they would just move more vehicles to Mexico.
And China and Korea
I've worked for GM for 28yrs trust me I've seen it all..really liked your comments..the part you left out is Mary saying we're going all in on EV's..that's how clueless and out of touch with reality she is..I wish I could be in that board room and say what are thinking,??
How typical of Mary she took the Left road full steam ahead ,, how did that work out for you , Failure !!!
Mary is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to incompetent leadership in corporations
Since there are only 5 full size truck plants--Mexico,Arlington,FtWayne,Oshawa,Flint- who is losing?
Taking into account the ever-rising expense of transportation or the financial impact of logistics, placing an assembly plant in East Central Michigan makes little sense when you have the option to further enlarge or build a new plant in the center of the U.S. like Eastern Kansas or Missouri where GM already has locations and can tap into an experienced workforce. A very shortsighted decision to spend this huge sum at Orion.
Your point? Michigan builds more vehicles than any other state and has the most auto jobs by far than any other state.
Disagree. Most everything is in Michigan.
Worked there at GM for a lifetime. Michigan has it all.
GM has closed hundreds of factories over the years because of their short sighted view of what consumers want. This continues today under the current leadership. The big build up for electric vehicles that everyday Americans will not buy. Gm managed to loose market share which in the 1970’s was about 46% of U.S. auto sales now they can not break 17%! They forced bad vehicles on America over the past 5 decades and now the CEO is trying to force EV’s down our throats which are too expensive and people do not want. They remain clueless and will run the company into the ground like they did when they had to get bailed out by the government.
When will the Chevrolet Montana be available in Georgia, USA?
Whitmer should bow down and thank her nemesis for bringing jobs to her state good luck with that. What is Fein gonna do come Midterms? Endorse the same old liberals that want to send jobs out of the country? And watch 80% Of UAW members vote against his recommendation?