• time;2025-07-22 13:20:55

Cadillac Escalade production is transferred to Orion factory

General Motors, the largest automobile manufacturing company in the United States(GM) will make changes from a strategy centered around electric vehicles,Expand the production of gasoline vehicles.

General Motors recently announced through an official statement that the Orion Assembly plant in Michigan will begin producing Cadillac Escalades, Chevrolet Silverado, and GMC Sierra light pickup trucks from 2027.

The Orion factory was originally planned to convert for the production of electric vehicles, but due to the slowdown in global demand for electric vehicles, the schedule has been postponed. Regarding this, General Motors currently uses Detroit's "Factory ZERO" as a dedicated production base for electric vehicles such as Silverado EV, Sierra EV, Hummer EV, Escalade IQ, etc. The Haoliyou factory is first responsible for the production of battery modules.

General Motors explained that this decision is based on the judgment that customer demand for traditional internal combustion engine models remains strongIt will play a role in improving the existing production capacity of the Fort Wayne factory in Indiana.

Currently, the Escalade is produced at the Arlington factory in Texas, along with Chevrolet Tahoe, Serverburn, GMC Ucon, and others.

General Motors announced a $4 billion investment plan for domestic manufacturing facilities in the United States in June this year. The change plan for the Haoliyou factory is also part of it. In addition to Orion, the restructuring of the Fairfax factory in Kansas and the Spring Hill factory in Tennessee will also be promoted in the next two years.

This strategic adjustment is also closely related to changes in the policy environment. Recently, in the United States, Donald·President Trump's policy of strengthening import tariffs on automobiles and the recently passed Big Beautiful Bill have removed penalty clauses imposed for failure to meet fuel efficiency standards (CAFE)This will becomePolicy background to enable manufacturers to respond more flexibly to the production of internal combustion engine vehicles.

In fact, General Motors was fined over $128 million by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for failing to meet fuel efficiency standards for its 2016 and 2017 models.

However,The new bill also includes provisions to repeal the $7500 federal tax credit provided when purchasing electric vehiclesTherefore, some people have suggested that it may have a negative impact on the sales of General Motors' Explorer EV and Trailblazer EV.

In addition, pickup trucks and large SUVs are GM's most profitable main models. According to internal information released by General Motors, in the first half of 2025, both the Silverado and SUV models achieved their highest sales performance in history, with sales of the Silverado increasing by 2.15% year-on-year to 283812 units.

General Motors' position is to strategically respond to changing market and policy environments by expanding the production of this highly profitable internal combustion engine product through the Orion factory.

Article source: Structure and Principles of Automotive Power Systems - Upper Engineering