GM to Include Electric Pickup and Batteries in $7 Billion U.S. Investment Pledge

Over the past few years, the automobile industry in the United States has come under a lot of pressure due to the fact that most of those companies had a large number of overseas production facilities. The United States President, Donald Trump has been quite vocal about the whole affair and even offered tax breaks to companies which were willing to bring back automobile jobs to the country. General Motors is one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world and in new development; it has now pledged that it is going to invest $7 billion in the United States. The pledge was the result of widespread talks with the representatives of the United Auto Workers. However, in addition to the massive investment pledge, there are other factors at play that makes this investment from GM such an important thing.

The company has started an advanced battery system along with an electric pickup truck, which are going to be a part of the investment that is being made by the car manufacturing giant. Apparently, it is a forward-looking move from GM. The investment pledge comes after a round of talks with the United Auto Workers, the auto workers’ union had closed down the company’s operations in the country. It should be noted that the company’s operations in the United States are highly lucrative and such a shut down must not have come as a pleasant thing for GM. As many 48,000 workers, who work on an hourly wage, had gone on strike and this investment pledge comes as part of those negotiations.

While it did speak about the electric pickup truck and battery system, the company did not specify anything else with regards to other projects it might be investing in. However, GM did specify that the investments are going to be spread over a total of 8 plants across 4 states in the United States. Sources which are close to the development have informed that the electric vehicles are going to be produced in Michigan, while the battery systems are going to be built in Ohio. However, the company is not going to open any new plants as part of the investment, since GM already enjoys significant excess capacity.