GM's Factory Shuffle Could Point to Big Electric Car Plans

Something electric could be brewing at General Motors, and we’re not talking about just the Chevrolet Bolt.

John Rosevear at the Motley Fool has an interesting take on what the future holds for Orion Assembly (the Michigan facility tapped to produce the Bolt this fall), and why GM seems to be keeping other models away from the plant.

Yesterday, we brought you news of the Buick Verano’s impending death, but the manufacturing space the luxury compact would leave behind is also interesting. With the Verano (likely) gone from Orion after 2017, the plant would hold only the Chevrolet Sonic and Bolt.

A small, yet-unnamed Cadillac model was due to be produced at Orion within a few years, until GM kiboshed that plan in April and moved its production to Fairfax Assembly in Kansas City.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Rosevear writes, “unless GM is planning to move something else into the Orion factory.”

While recent developments imply that GM has something special in mind for Orion, there’s no hint from the automaker that any new small car models are on the way, electric or otherwise.

Analysts are predicting between 30,000 and 80,000 Bolts sold in its first year — a wide range, for sure, but far less than the 400,000 Model 3 reservations Tesla has to work through. If the utility-minded Bolt proves a success, and EVs steadily gain market share, GM could diversify its electric offerings to battle a growing number of competitors, including Ford.

It could do that, but only if it had space to build more models on the same architecture. And that’s where Orion’s spare capacity enters the picture again.

Rosevear speculates that a new EV model from GM could be a halo car for Buick, though that seems to be the opposite direction of where the crossover-infatuated brand is heading. Buick’s global chief Duncan Aldred said in the past that he didn’t want low-volume models in the lineup, but viewpoints can change.