Talk about a twist of fate. A plant General Motors was planning to close will play a key role in their electric future. This morning, GM announced the Detroit-Hamtramck facility will be their first fully-dedicated electric vehicle assembly plant. The plant will produce GM’s first all-electric pickup truck. The plant will also assemble the Cruise Origin. Last week we told you about the electric, self-driving, ride-hailing vehicle unveiled by Cruise in San Francisco.
Detroit-Hamtramck currently builds the remaining Cadillac CT6 and the Chevrolet Impala. Production is scheduled to end next month. Since it opened in 1985, Detroit-Hamtramck has built more than 4 million vehicles. GM is spending $2.2 billion to make the plant ready to send electric vehicles along the assembly line. The battery cells for those EV’s will come from Lordstown, Ohio where GM and Korean chemical company LG Chem are building a new battery plant.
GM says production of their first all-electric truck is scheduled to begin in late 2021. They’ll start building the Cruise Origin soon after that.
