The General Motors Orion Township plant in Michigan will be home to a new Chevrolet electric car, the automaker announced Friday. GM will invest $300 million in the facility, to build the new Chevy electric vehicle and bring 400 new jobs to the plant.
The announcement did not address specifics on the new electric car, but GM shared it will be based on an "advanced version" of the current Chevrolet Bolt EV platform. It's widely suspected to be the boxier, Bolt-based crossover that GM has teased on its product map.
The Bolt EV is the only current vehicle to ride on GM's BEV2 platform, which can be considered in some ways an offshoot of GM's Gamma 2 architecture underpinning the Chevrolet Sonic and Trax. Potentially succeeding BEV2 will be the BEV3 platform, which GM announced in January. The first Cadillac electric car, an SUV, will ride on the BEV3 architecture.
2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV
More details on the new Chevy electric car will be released closer to production, the automaker added.
The automaker also shared the mystery Chevy EV was originally slated for production outside of the U.S., but a few factors eventually landed the new car at the Orion assembly plant. Foremost, since it will be related to the Bolt EV, it makes sense for the two to share an assembly line. Orion currently builds the Bolt EV and Sonic as it was pegged as GM's small-car hub for the U.S. after GM's bankruptcy reorganization.
Production at the Orion plant also supports new rules proposed under the Trump administration's NAFTA free trade agreement replacement called USMCA.
2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV pre-production
The $300 million is part of a wider investment plan for GM. The automaker said today is the first portion of a new $1.8 billion investment for its U.S. manufacturing centers. Details on the additional investments will come at a later date, but GM said it plans to add 700 new jobs to other U.S. facilities with the investments.