General Motors will invest $2.2 billion to build EVs in Detroit

Enlarge / General Motors Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant used to build the Volt PHEV; soon, it will build BEV pickups. (credit: General Motors)

On Monday morning, General Motors President Mark Reuss announced that GM will renovate its Detroit-Hamtramck facility in Michigan at the cost of $2.2 billion to become a factory just for battery electric vehicles. The factory will begin building a BEV pickup truck starting in late 2021 and will also produce the electric autonomous taxi pods to be used by Cruise.

GM says it will also invest $800 million in supplier tooling and related startup costs for BEV production, and when the revamped factory is fully operational, it will create “more than 2,200 good-paying US manufacturing jobs.”

Additionally, in Ohio, GM’s Lordstown factory will be the site of a joint venture with LG Chem—which is putting in $2.3 billion—that will churn out lithium-ion cells to power the Detroit-Hamtramck-built BEVs.