GM To Announce Michigan Gets Its Small Car Plant
June 26, 2009
By Michelle Krebs
DETROIT -- General Motors will announce later Friday that its future small car, likely the Chevrolet Spark, will be built at a Michigan plant and not plants in Spring Hill, Tennessee, or Janesville, Wisconsin.
GM President North America Troy Clarke will host a media conference call Friday afternoon to make the official announcement, although word already had leaked out by Thursday's evening news.
The Orion Township, Michigan, plant, located in the Detroit suburbs, assembles the Pontiac G6 sedan, which will be discontinued when the entire Pontiac division is eliminated at year-end. The plant then added production of the popular Chevrolet Malibu, which is also made at a Kansas plant.
GM had said in its bankruptcy plan that it would idle the Orion plant, and plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee; GM idled its Janesville, Wisconsin, plant in December. In its last round of negotiations with the United Auto Workers union, GM agreed to build its future subcompact car in the U.S. at
one of the three plants in exchange for labor concessions.
The Janesville, Wisconsin, plant, which builds trucks, was never believed to be in contention. However, the battle between the Michigan and Tennessee plants was heated, with local governments kicking in tax incentives, politicians lobbying the automaker and residents launching Web sites and petition drives urging GM to pick their locale.
The Spring Hill plant was built outside of Nashville in the 1990s to exclusively assemble Saturn models. However, as Saturn was folded into GM, the plant added other models, most recently the Chevrolet Traverse crossover. Production of that model will be moved to a plant near Lansing, Michigan, which assembles its cousins, the Buick Enclave, the GMC Acadia and the Saturn Outlook.
The selection of Michigan plant for the new small car means an affiliated metal-stamping plant nearby will also remain open to supply the Orion assembly plant, saving thousands of jobs.
Meantime, it appears the Tennessee and Wisconsin plants now will close within 18 months.
Photos by GM
1 - GM will save thousands of jobs at the Orion Township, Michigan, plant when it begins assembly of small cars there.
2 - The Chevrolet Beat concept, shown by GM executives to Congressional leaders in Washington, will become the Chevroelt Spark, likely to be built at the Orion Township, Michigan, plant.
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