Truck production in Oshawa to start sooner than expected, says GM Canada CEO Scott Bell

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The first trucks will roll out of the reborn General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ont., sooner than expected as the auto maker pushes ahead with construction to meet demand for pick-ups.

GM is hiring 1,700 production workers, electricians and other tradespeople to assemble vehicles at the plant east of Toronto and will be producing pickups beginning in the fourth quarter of 2021, said Scott Bell, president and managing director of GM Canada.

The target date is earlier than the January, 2022, production schedule announced last year, when GM and the Unifor union unveiled a $1.3-billion plan to resume auto production at the assembly line that closed in 2019.

Ontario GM workers to vote on collective agreement that will see production resume at Oshawa plant

“It’s something that we have been pushing for,” Mr. Bell said of the earlier startup date. “We need the availability of those trucks.”

About 3,000 workers lost their jobs when the Oshawa assembly line went quiet in 2019, as GM closed five North American plants and ended production of the Chevrolet Impala and other poorly selling models. The Detroit-based company said the move would save $6-billion and enable it to invest in developing and making electric vehicles, or EVs.

GM kept the sprawling Oshawa facility on life support, employing 300 people to make after-market car parts, and lately, COVID-19 face masks for the government.

Carlton Plummer began working at the Oshawa plant in 2004 and was among those cut loose in 2019. Since then, he has worked there off and on, making auto parts and masks in between stretches of layoff. He expects to be back working at the plant by the summer. “It’s good news,” said Mr. Plummer, 47.

GM declined to name the pickups it will make in Oshawa, but the Unifor union previously said the models will be the best-selling Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra.

Mr. Bell said the pace of the construction is defying expectations, even amid the pandemic that has slowed border crossings and made travel harder.

Refitting the Oshawa plant to make trucks involves building a shop that will form and weld truck bodies, installing 3,150 metres of conveyors, 500 kilometres of wiring and more than 1,200 robots that are assembled in Michigan and arrive by truck.

Talks with federal and provincial governments about taxpayer contributions to the project are continuing, Mr. Bell said.

Mr. Bell said the Oshawa plant is being modelled after the GM assembly line in Flint, Mich., and will have the built-in flexibility to produce different vehicles as buyer demands shift. GM this year said it planned to switch its entire lineup to emissions-free vehicles by 2035. Electric Hummers and Silverados are expected on dealer lots in late 2021 and 2022. GM’s plant in Ingersoll, Ont., will make electric delivery trucks.

But for now, Mr. Bell said, the Oshawa plant will make trucks powered by internal combustion engines.

“It’s going to take the truck industry a little bit of time, I think, to see what you can and what more you can do with an [EV],” he said from Milford, Mich. “We anticipate our future is to transition all of our portfolio to EVs. But that’s going to take time and right now the demand is for what we’re going to be building in Oshawa.”

GM on Wednesday reported financial results that beat Wall Street’s outlook, despite a microchip shortage that has reduced production.

Mary Barra, GM’s chief executive officer, said the automaker is on track to make a 2021 adjusted profit of US$10-billion to US$11-billion. “There has been engineering changes and other adjustments being made,” Ms. Barra said in an interview broadcast on CNBC. “We are really focused on protecting our highest demand vehicles … full-size pickups, full-size SUVs and our electric vehicles.”

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