GM to spend $7B on electric truck, battery cell production

General Motors (GM) will invest $7 billion towards “significantly increasing battery cell and electric truck manufacturing capacity,” the company announced Tuesday. The money will go to four Michigan manufacturing sites and create 4,000 new jobs. It will also keep another 1,000 people employed at an underutilized assembly plant north of Detroit.

“The $7 billion investment is the largest in GM’s history, and it’s so appropriate that it’s in Michigan,” GM CEO Mary Berra said at a Tuesday news conference. According to the company, Tuesday’s announcement is the “latest step toward accelerating GM’s drive to become the EV market leader in North America by 2025.”

“The Orion and Ultium Cells Lansing investments announced today will support an increase in total full-size electric truck production capacity to 600,000 trucks when both Factory ZERO and Orion facilities are fully ramped,” GM said in a press release. Combined with the company’s three other plants in Tennessee, Ontario and Mexico, total electric vehicle production is expected to top 1 million.

GM has a lot of competition in the EV market. Right now, GM is in a tight battle with Ford for the No. 2 spot. Earlier this month, Ford said it will be able to build 600,000 electric vehicles, including 150,000 F-150 Lightning pickup trucks, starting in 2024.

Both Ford and GM are still a far cry from Tesla in terms of electric car and truck production. Tesla will soon open a second U.S. plant in Austin, Texas, and is on pace to sell more than 1 million electric vehicles around the world this year.

There’s also Rivian, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange last November. A month later, the company said it had roughly 71,000 preorders for its R1T electric pickup truck and R1S electric SUV. Despite the competition, GM remained confident.

“Our plan creates the broadest EV portfolio of any automaker and further solidifies our path toward U.S. EV leadership by mid-decade,” the company said.