General Motors is spending $760 million to make its Toledo Transmission plant a hub for electric drive systems.
The electric propulsion systems are planned initially for two of the automaker’s most-important future vehicles: the Chevrolet Silverado EV pickup and the GMC Sierra EV.
The investment positions Toledo in the forefront of an EV revolution that has GM promising to have its lineup of new vehicles all-electric by 2035.
GM manufacturing chief Gerald Johnson announced the plant retooling Friday at a ceremony attended by hundreds of plant workers and several dignitaries, including Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, UAW President Ray Curry, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur, and Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz.
Toledo Transmission, henceforth called Toledo Propulsion Systems, is the first GM propulsion plant in the United States to be refitted for electric drives.
For several more years, the plant will continue to produce traditional transmissions for gas-powered vehicles side-by-side with electric drives.
GM said the investment cements a work force at the plant of about 1,500 people, including 1,300 UAW-represented hourly employees and 200 salaried, non-union workers.
“This investment helps build job security for our Toledo team for years to come and is the next step on our journey to an all-electric future,” Mr. Johnson said. He added that the jobs are predominantly retention.
The first electric drive units produced at Toledo Transmission — scheduled for 2024 at the earliest — will go into Chevy’s much-anticipated Silverado EV full-size pickup.
The EV version of the high-volume truck is scheduled to begin rolling off the assembly line in late 2023 at GM’s so-called Factory Zero, also known as the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center. No date has been announced for the launch of the Sierra EV from the same assembly plant. Toledo Propulsion also is slated to supply drive units for the much-anticipated GMC Hummer EV.
The gasoline-powered Silverado is GM’s best-selling vehicle, with customers buying 530,000 of the pickups in 2021. That was down nearly 11 percent from the prior year, largely because of chip shortages.
Combined with its sister vehicle, the GMC Sierra, the duo trailed only the Ford F-150 for America’s best-selling pickup.
Feeding drive systems to such popular models almost assures a steady future stream of work for the Toledo plant. Today, the plant supplies a variety of transmissions to gasoline-powered GM trucks and SUVs.
Its offerings include 6-speed, 8-speed, and 10-speed transmissions for rear-wheel-drive trucks and SUVs and a 9-speed transmission for front-wheel-drive SUVs, such as the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain.
Mr. Johnson said the skills for making EV drives are very similar to producing transmissions. That was a factor in choosing the plant for future EV work, he said. The machining of the units and assembly is done in-house.
What’s more, the plant has a history of efficiently producing high-quality work, Mr. Johnson said.
The plant is certified by GM as a Level 4 facility, the highest rating for its manufacturing plants, he said.
Hourly workers at the plant are represented by UAW Local 14 in Toledo. The local’s shop chairman, Jeff King, said workers earned the new product by consistently turning out world-class quality transmissions.
“That has helped us win what we got today,” Mr. King said.
GM purchased the plant in 1956. It opened in 1916.
The plant, located at 1455 Alexis Road in Toledo, spans 2.8 million square feet and sits on 151 acres.
Toledo Mayor Kapszukiewicz noted that GM has dozens of factories and just as many options for the investment.
“They could have done this anywhere,” he said. “They chose Toledo. They chose you.”
First Published September 23, 2022, 4:30 p.m.
