GM to put $7B into Mich. EV, battery plants
LANSING, Mich. — General Motors is making the largest investment in company history in its home state of Michigan, announcing plans to spend nearly $7 billion to convert a factory to make electric pickup trucks and to build a new battery cell plant.
The moves, announced Tuesday, will create up to 4,000 jobs and keep another 1,000 already employed at an underutilized assembly plant north of Detroit.
The automaker plans to spend up to $4 billion converting and expanding its Orion Township assembly factory to make electric pickups and $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion building a third U.S. battery cell plant with a joint-venture partner in Lansing.
The state’s economic development board on Tuesday approved $824 million in incentives and assistance for Detroitbased GM. The package was unveiled and authorized by the Michigan Strategic Fund Board. It includes a $600 million grant to GM and Ultium Cells, the venture between the carmaker and LG Energy Solution, and a $158 million tax break for Ultium. The board also approved $66.1 million to help a local electric utility and township upgrade infrastructure at the battery factory site.
Both factories are scheduled to start producing in about two years, as GM rolls the dice on whether Americans will be willing to convert from internal combustion engines to battery power.
The Orion plant will join GM’s “Factory Zero” facility in Detroit in building new electric Chevrolet Silverados and GMC Sierra pickups. When both plants are making trucks on three shifts, GM will have the ability to build 600,000 electric pickup trucks per year, GM CEO Mary Barra said.
The announcement is a critical win for Michigan, which lost out on Ford Motor Co.’s $11 billion investment in three battery plants and a new vehicle assembly plant that went to Kentucky and Tennessee.
GM says it will build four battery cell factories in North America. The Lansing announcement is its third, but the location of the fourth plant has not been announced.
Other plants are being built in Lordstown, Ohio, and Spring Hill, Tennessee.