GM Stretches Downtime at North American Plants into October

Here is where things stand now:

• Production of the Chevrolet Malibu mid-sized car at GM’s Fairfax assembly plant in Kansas City, Kan., will remain down through the week of Oct. 25. The automaker has not made the Malibu at Fairfax since Feb. 8.

• GM’s Orion assembly plant in Michigan, which makes the Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle (EV), will be down the through the week of Oct. 11 because of a safety recall. The facility was previously expected to resume production in late September.

• The automaker’s Lansing Delta Township assembly plant, also in Michigan, will take an additional week of downtime the week of Sept. 27 and is expected to resume production the week of Oct. 4. The plant has been down since July 19 and was previously expected to resume production in late September. Lansing Delta Township builds the Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave SUVs.

• GM’s Lansing Grand River assembly plant, another Michigan facility, has extended downtime for production of the Chevrolet Camaro and Cadillac Blackwing sports cars through the week of Sept. 27. Output of the Camaro and Blackwing was previously scheduled to resume on Sept. 20.

• Outside of the U.S., GM has stretched downtime through to the week of Oct. 11 at its CAMI assembly plant in Canada, at its San Louis Potosi assembly plant in Mexico, and at its Ramos assembly plant, also in Mexico.

CAMI makes the Chevrolet Equinox compact SUV, San Luis Petosi makes the Equinox and the GMC Terrain compact SUV, and Ramos makes the Equinox as well as the Chevrolet Blazer SUV.

“We remain confident in our team’s ability to continue finding creative solutions to minimize the impact on our highest-demand and capacity constrained vehicles,” the GM spokesman said.

By Michael Cowden, Michael@SteelMarketUpdate.com