GM plans to begin making the Chevy Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV at its Factory Zero in Detroit this year before adding the Orion plant as a second assembly site in 2024. Together, the two plants will give GM the ability to make 600,000 electric pickups a year.
Production of the Bolt will end in late 2023, GM said this week, and employment at the Orion plant is expected to roughly triple when it reopens for pickup production next year.
Crain’s Detroit Business, an affiliate of Automotive News, first reported the planned development in early March for the property co-owed by a developer and Pistons owner Tom Gores, who paid $22 million for the site in 2019.
“We have been planning and preparing for this day for the last seven years,” Auburn Hills Mayor Kevin McDaniel said in a statement Friday. “This would be a significant project and would represent a tremendous strategic investment in our community. It would also build on our reputation as being a ‘hub’ of electric vehicle development and manufacturing.”
The Pistons played on the site from 1988 to 2017 before moving to Little Caesars Arena in downtown Detroit.
