Featured Volt and Cruise factories to close.

too bad, i thought the cruise was a nice little car.

volt should have been larger with less range. it's almost like they didn't want it to sell.

 

Cruze, right spelling? Believe we drove past the Cruze plant on the way to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland one time.

 

I'll admit that I was surprised to see this...but not shocked.

GM put quite a bit of R&D effort into the Volt as well. It's a shame they are ditching it. Anyone know if the Bolt is affected?

 

I won't miss the Cruze one little bit.

Shouldn't affect the Bolt, those are all made in South Korea.

 

... and a whole lot more, including 5 North American factories, 15% of salaried staff, 25% of executive staff, and most sedans.

GM to kill Chevy Volt production in 2019 | PriusChat

GM is cutting 15% of its salaried workers and closing 5 plants - CNN

 

Dealer told us about the Impala a year or so ago. The large sedan market in the US is dying.

They aren't ditching the system. The Buick model will still be sold in China, and a CUV version is coming out over there.

That was the Spark EV. The Bolt is assembled at GM's Orion plant in Detroit. They needed it to be domestic made for CAFE credits. Otherwise, the Spark EV would have been rolled out nationwide as originally planned.

 

The large sedan market is pretty moribund. More and more buyers are choosing crossovers and small SUVs instead of the traditional sedan. There's still some market for the small, economy vehicles, though Detroit seems more and more willing to let Japan and South Korea have all of that action.

 

It's not surprising. If I remember right, Ford dropped/quit production of all their cars except the Mustang.

According to this GM is planning on launching 20 new battery electric vehicles by 2023 though. But this is GM we're talking about so who knows.

GM to slash jobs and production as sedan sales sink

 

Tesla is doing well.

Bob Wilson

 

Article by Jeff Nisewanger.
GM to build last Chevy Volt in March 2019 as part of major restructuring – Electric Revs

 

huh... I'd read that they built the bits in Korea and then did final assembly in Detroit. I assumed that meant floor mats and headrests, or whatever the bare minimum was to claim compliance credit. I mean, it is GM.

 

Yes, Tesla can sell sedans to all the people that can no longer buy 20-30,000$ Fords and GMC’s, oh’ wait, Ford and GMC stopped selling them because they wern’t profitable, oh’ wait, Tesla doesn’t sell cars below 50,000$, hmmm.

 

Rideshare economy, bro. You don't need to be able to afford a car, just your next trip.

 

Thanks for the link. I'd been under the unfounded assumption that the Bolt was essentially an LG/Kia product that GM had thrown some money into and was pasting bowtie stickers onto.

I don't love admitting it, but now knowing that GM's involvement was much deeper, my enthusiasm for that model is dampened a bit.

 

Well, some do call it the LG Chem Bolt, but there was a reason GM got the batteries for nearly $100 kWh. Then much of the Spark EV's drivetrain was also Korean supplied, only the car is also built there.

The plan was for that Spark to go nationwide, but that was before the last big changes to CAFE. The industry was expecting the domestic and foreign fleet distinction for cars to go away, as it had done for trucks, but that didn't happen, so those plans were shelved, and Bolt production planned for the US. So any announcement of US factories being closed could affect it.

All the majors play this game. The last Crown Vic was an import.

The Spark and Aveo/Sonic(which the Bolt is based on) design work were done by GM Korea, which was once Daewoo.

 

The Spark EV motor was built in White Marsh, MD and the original batteries were assembled in Michigan, IIRC.

 

So White Marsh found a second life after the ‘two mode’ transmission.

Bob Wilson