- GM had said it’d invest $1.25 billion to morph the Lansing plant into an EV hub.
- The Department of Energy also gave GM a $500 million grant for the EV overhaul.
- Employees will continue to be paid 74 percent of their hourly wage.
Despite investing hundreds of millions of dollars in its Lansing, Michigan, facilities, originally intended to convert them into EV plants, GM has announced it’ll lay off 350 workers at its two local sites. It’s yet another reminder of how the automaker’s over-commitment to EVs keeps costing it, and costing its employees more.
Workers at the Lansing Grand River Assembly/Stamping and Lansing Regional Stamping facilities will be laid off on January 14, 2027, as the company uses the downtime to retool the site for production of a new combustion-powered Cadillac sedan. This model is tipped to take the shape of a new-generation CT5, using GM’s updated Alpha platform.
Read: GM’s Fourth US Battery Plant Just Stopped Being A GM Plant
Auto News reports that the affected employees will be recalled once retooling at the plant is complete. While they’re off work, they will continue to be paid 74 percent of their hourly wage thanks to the UAW’s contract with GM.
GM’s EV Plans Go Belly-Up
GM’s facilities in Lansing were supposed to become a hub for electric vehicles. In 2023, the company announced it would invest $1.25 billion at the site to turn it into an EV plant and, roughly a year later, also secured a $500 million grant from the Department of Energy to make it happen. It said the Lansing site would join other EV factories, such as Factory Zero Detroit-Hamtramck, Orion Assembly in Michigan, Spring Hill Manufacturing in Tennessee, and Fairfax Assembly in Kansas, as GM surged ahead with big electrification plans.
After cashing that $500 million grant, made up of taxpayer funds, GM has walked back its promise to build electrified vehicles at the site and will instead build a new Cadillac CT5.
GM boss Mary Barra recently revealed that GM will start launching its next generation of ICE-powered vehicles from Cadillac in the spring of 2027. In addition to a new CT5 being just around the corner, Cadillac is also thought to be working on a new XT5 and a new XT6. A new Camaro is also on the cards.
