General Motors plans to invest $1.3 billion upgrading two Michigan assembly plants and three powertrain plants, including retooling for a new 10-speed transmission, writes Nick Bunkley in Automotive News.
Today’s announcement calls for spending $600 million on a new paint shop and other upgrades at Flint Assembly, which builds light-duty and heavy-duty pickups, and $121 million on a logistics optimization center at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, which builds the Chevrolet Impala, Malibu and Volt.
GM also said it plans to spend $493.4 million at its powertrain plant in Romulus, Mich., on equipment to make a new 10-speed transmission and to increase capacity of a previously announced V-6 engine. That investment is in addition to a recently begun $390 million retooling project at the plant that has put about 500 workers on layoff through 2015.
