General Motors Co.
GM,
confirmed plans for a multibillion-dollar investment to produce electric pickup trucks in Michigan, giving the Great Lakes region a boost as competition intensifies between states to win a bigger role in the industry’s shift to battery-powered cars.
The automaker on Tuesday said it would convert a suburban Detroit factory into a center for the production of electric pickup trucks and build a battery-cell plant in Lansing, Mich. It plans to spend $4 billion to convert its Orion Assembly factory to build plug-in trucks and will split the cost of the $2.6 billion battery factory with partner LG Energy Solution.
On top of this spending, GM plans to invest about $500 million into two assembly plants near Lansing.
Altogether, GM plans to contribute nearly $6 billion of the $7 billion in the total costs for the projects, a figure that the car company says is its single largest investment in history. The spending is expected to create 4,000 jobs in the state, the automaker said. Plans for the Orion revamp and the new battery-cell plant were first reported last month by The Wall Street Journal.
An expanded version of this story appears on WSJ.com.
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