GM Ontario plant to halt BrightDrop assembly from October into spring

A General Motors Co. plant in Ontario will halt production of its all-electric BrightDrop commercial vans from October until next spring because of delays in the delivery of needed battery modules that power the vehicle, the Detroit automaker said Friday.

"CAMI Assembly will take downtime beginning in October, due to previously announced delays in battery-module supply," according to a GM statement sent by spokesperson Maria Violette. "Vehicle production is expected to resume in the spring of 2024, supported by the launch of CAMI's new battery-module line, which will have capacity to fully support BrightDrop production at CAMI and supplement EV production at other GM plants."

GM CEO Mary Barra on a second-quarter earnings call in July discussed an unspecified issue with automation equipment supply for battery module production that is slowing its electric vehicle production ramp-up. Unexpected delays stemmed from an unnamed automation equipment supplier that was struggling with delivery issues that were constraining module assembly capacity. At the time, she said it was expected to be revolved at the end of 2023.

GM sent manufacturing engineering teams to help the automation supplier improve its delivery. The automaker has also added manual module assembly lines at its EV plants, including the CAMI plant in Ingersoll. The 400,000-square-foot facility is expected to be up and running in the second quarter of 2024 for BrightDrop Zevo production and other GM EVs.

CAMI also had two additional weeks of downtime in July because of parts availability issues following two weeks of a summer shutdown.

bnoble@detroitnews.com

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Staff Writer Kalea Hall contributed.