DETROIT – If you want to spot a trend, all you need to do is look where the money is going.
For General Motors, $2.3 billion are going toward a new battery plant in the United States. It won’t be in Metro Detroit, but Spring HIll Tennessee.
GM CEO Mary Barra made it clear it’s a new day for a new way of driving.
“They demonstrate we are committed to changing the world right now,” Barra said. “We are taking bold steps necessary to accelerate toward an all electric future and to support our vision of a zero crash, zero emission and zero congestion.”
The Spring Hill plant once destined for mothballs will play a very important future role and will look dramatically different.
“This state of the art plant will create 1,300 new jobs,” Barra said. “Construction will begin immediately with the goal of coming on line in late 2023.”
GM will be building batteries with LG Chem of Korea, a separate company that isn’t unionized.
“They’re going to be shutting down a lot of their existing engine plants, transmission plants, other component plants that supply those parts,” said analyst Sam Abuelsamid. “There are gonna be a lot of UAW jobs lost with those plants and this is not exclusive to GM.”
The United Auto Workers responded the following statement Friday: