GM's Factory Zero plant in Detroit to get more EV product

Detroit — General Motors Co. will announce Tuesday additional electric products for its Detroit-Hamtramck plant where forecasters predict a Chevrolet pickup, Cadillac SUVs and other EV products are likely to be built. 

The Detroit automaker sent out an advisory Monday for the noon virtual event with GM President Mark Reuss making the "important product-related announcements" at Factory Zero Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center.

Outside of the GMC Hummer EV truck and SUV and the Cruise Origin, which GM has already said will be built at the local plant, Sam Fiorani of AutoForecast Solutions is forecasting an electric Chevrolet pickup for 2022 and Cadillac SUVs for 2024 at Factory Zero.

Industry forecaster LMC Automotive also predicts the electric Chevy Silverado-like pickup to launch there for a late 2022 start and lists the electric Cadillac Escalade-like SUV for 2024, LMC analyst Katelyn Drake said. It also predicts an electric pickup likely under the GMC brand in mid-2023. That would make for six vehicles at the plant.

"It's definitely a lot of vehicles," Drake said. "But they're all riding in a similar segment and have a similar size. It's not this mixture of a smaller car kind of thing mixed with a big pickup. That allows them to do that and have that flexibility."

And, of course, for now, electric vehicles also make up a smaller market share than internal combustion engines.

The vehicles are a part of GM's plan to have 30 EVs offered by 2025. This is the first year GM is spending more money investing in EVs than it is in gas-and-diesel-powered products. Its goal is to have an all zero-emissions lineup by 2035. 

The Detroit plant, one of four North American EV plants GM has planned so far, is central to the automaker's plans. The plant, which was once slated to close, will pump out electric Hummers later this year. GM renamed it last year to "Factory Zero," a sign of GM's commitment to achieving "zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion," with its EV and autonomous technology. 

"Factory Zero is their focus plant for the BET, battery-electric truck, platform," Fiorani said. "Because the volumes so far are going to be low it makes sense to consolidate them all into one plant."

khall@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @bykaleahall