General Motors announced today that the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant will close for four weeks beginning in June for planned upgrades to prepare for a significant increase in the rate of Volt production, along with assembly of the 2013 Chevrolet Malibu midsize sedan.
For the next three months, Volt supply will be further restricted for retail deliveries. Coupled with already low dealer inventories and strong demand, the suspension of production will result in limited availability and reduced sales in June and July.
After the plant re-opens, it will begin exporting Volts and the Opel Ampera to Europe, and some Volts to China.
The Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant will close next month for one month, This will of necessity curtail supply in order to ready the plant for large-scale production next year, as well as prepare for new Malibu production.
“The Volt will be available to customers nationwide by the end of 2011,” said Cristi Landy, director of Chevrolet Volt Marketing. “By taking the time to reconfigure the plant, we will be better able to meet the tremendous consumer demand.”
Although Volt availability will be restricted for the time being, ultimate Volt and Ampera production capacity will increase to 16,000 units this year, including exports and several hundred Volt demonstrator units sent to U.S. dealers. Of these, the U.S. gets 10,000, 2,500 are dealer demos, and 3,500 go to export markets.
Global production capacity in 2012 is expected to be 60,000 vehicles. Of these 45,000 are slated for the U.S., with the rest being divided to export markets.
Other publications may present this production increase as first-time news, however, GM-Volt.com reported these approximate numbers on April 6.
At the time, we wrote: “In fact, Chevrolet will sell more than 10,000 Volts for 2011. GM will actually build 15,000 Volts at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant this year. And while we’re on the topic, next year it won’t build 45,000, it will build 60,000.”
During the four-week shutdown next month, the plant will complete some pre-scheduled upgrades, including the installation of new tools, equipment and overhead conveyor systems throughout the facility.
This will prepare the plant for 2012 Volt and Ampera production and continue work on projects in preparation to launch the 2013 Malibu next year.
Production at the DHAM plant of the all-new 2013 Chevrolet Malibu will begin next year. The 2013 Malibu launch will be led by the Eco model, expected to achieve 38 miles per gallon on the highway.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 18th, 2011 at 4:39 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
+5
May 18th, 2011 (4:44 pm)Gimmie my VOLT!!! Waaah, hurry hurry.
+6
May 18th, 2011 (4:45 pm)“By taking the time to reconfigure the plant, we will be better able to meet the tremendous consumer demand.”
But all the radio hosts keep telling me “Nobody want’s these things”
Its too bad they have to stop production for a month, but if its what is needed to increase production that is a good thing!
+1
May 18th, 2011 (5:23 pm)“For the next three months, Volt supply will be further restricted for retail deliveries. Coupled with already low dealer inventories and strong demand, the suspension of production, will result in limited availability and reduced sales in June and July.”—Does this mean that the 2012 Volt will start sales in August?
+1
May 18th, 2011 (5:25 pm)Let’s see what happens. I’d love to see production go to 60K units a year in 2012 but I have some doubts. We should know pretty quickly. When the plant shuts production Volts should number 4000. To hit 16K units in 2011 they’ll have to turn out about 2000 cars a month.
+11
May 18th, 2011 (5:26 pm)Yep, before long they will be selling 200,000 of these things “nobody wants” each year.
+2
May 18th, 2011 (5:44 pm)No complaints from me. The sooner they do the shutdown, the sooner I get my 2012 Volt
Funny that there is no mention of the closest export market, Canada.
May 18th, 2011 (5:47 pm)I hope they accidentally put a Volt’s guts in a Malibu and that’s the one I get.
-14
May 18th, 2011 (6:20 pm)(click to show comment)
-15
May 18th, 2011 (6:22 pm)(click to show comment)
May 18th, 2011 (6:34 pm)I already have a production number for the 2012 Volt that I ordered on April 21. Does this mean my Volt will not be built until after the shutdown? I thought I was going to get my Volt 10-12 weeks after I placed my order? So instead of a June-July delivery date should I be expecting a September-October delivery date?
+3
May 18th, 2011 (6:41 pm)That capacity increase would be needed before the announcement of a significantly lower price.
These first sales were clearly a market volume indicator for the determination of a retail cost reduction, I’d bet.
We’ll see in a few more short months.
+3
May 18th, 2011 (6:42 pm)Great to see this confirmation of bumped up production.
The ignorance of some of the media is laughable–Fox Biz News on TV kept getting the story all wrong today. Nice to know what’s REALLY happening.
-12
May 18th, 2011 (6:47 pm)(click to show comment)
+3
May 18th, 2011 (7:14 pm)Good to see increased production… next year will be very insteresting… and the few years after will see many new vehicles competing with the Volt technology… GM should make sure they keep their technology to themselves and not sell out. Too much has gone into this technology.
And our government has to start supporting American companies by making sure they have a level playing field at least.
+2
May 18th, 2011 (8:18 pm)You go Terri….Kick out the Volts.
Take Care, TED
May 18th, 2011 (9:03 pm)I think it would be really nice to know if indeed there is to be a price reduction, that it could possibly indicate the **rate** annually of price reduction.
This would be incredibly helpful for consumer planning. I can’t stress enough the fact that the consumer must be able to plan. 18 to 30 months out is how I would see it now, at least, given the current cost.
If there were to be a 60 mile electric range CUV, that is a bare bones basic model, that could help the time line feasibility as well. A CUV might only be a Volt that has the rear horizontal linear two feet with higher rear side windows on the sides, well, like CUV station wagon. Again, we will just have to wait and see.
-1
May 18th, 2011 (9:21 pm)Did any of you new Volt owners buy the extended warranty? How much did you pay?
May 18th, 2011 (10:24 pm)What’s that??!? A production interruption, you say?
That’s the second time today I’ve had to post that picture*, vis-a-vis my feelings on a Volt-related matter!!
Oh well… ultimately, it’s all for the greater good. Go Volt!!
* = P.S., I promise to stop now
May 18th, 2011 (10:26 pm)Wow. Usually summer shutdown is only 2 weeks. They must be doing some major overhaul like they are doing in the GM Lansing plant. We’ve got some work going on there for the Sigma & Alpha lines for the new Cadillacs.
May 18th, 2011 (11:19 pm)As we well know, Hamtramck can build lots of Volts. But only if they have the parts. I believe LG Chem said they have extra capacity at their Korean plant, so for the rest of the year, I expect that is where the batteries will come from. GM cancelled their contract with Remy for the electric motors and controllers in favor of building their own. But I don’t know the date GM will be building their own, I suspect in July. GM is also planning on building the ICE in Michigan, currently coming from Hungary I believe. All this bodes well for increased production capacity and lower cost. Next year LG Chem should have their battery plant running in Holland, Michigan and will easily be able to supply 60k sets per year.
+2
May 18th, 2011 (11:33 pm)GM – I will tip my proverbial hat to you on this one. You’re EXPORTING CARS to CHINA!
Good job. Makes me even prouder to be a Volt owner. It was the one shameful streak that I had felt about this car, was the potential that it will be built in China before we know it.
Please continue to build these cars stateside and export them as long as you reasonably can, especially if not doing that = surrenduring the technology to the Chinese.
May 18th, 2011 (11:35 pm)Roy_H,
So this concept of the contract with Remy getting cancelled is something that I’ve thought about. What happes 2-4 years down the road. Those of us early adopters will be the odd man out with a Remy motor whilst everyone else will have GM. What if something goes wrong with our Remy?
+3
May 19th, 2011 (3:59 am)Unfortunately just one. They will tear it apart, copy it, and sell thousands of copies for half the price.
+2
May 19th, 2011 (5:14 am)I’m going to make a prediction. Some of the Volt-hating talking heads will report that sales are down in June and July without knowing about supply reductions due to the production line upgrades. I’d bet huge wads of cash on my prediction. It reminds me of a line from a song by Steve Martin, “Criticize things you don’t know about”
+1
May 19th, 2011 (8:37 am)Dan Petit,
did not buy the extended warranty. 10 years on the battery and less on the rest of the car is more than sufficient. Besides, I intend to buy Volt 2.0 when it comes out in 2014.
May 20th, 2011 (7:07 pm)Yes! Keep cranking them out! But please drop the price so I can afford to buy one =)
If you can take out the Nav and all the gadgets plus 20-30 mile range to get it down below $30k I would buy one. My iPhone already has the Nav on it.
May 22nd, 2011 (11:50 am)pavers123,
“So this concept of the contract with Remy getting cancelled is something that I’ve thought about. What happes 2-4 years down the road. Those of us early adopters will be the odd man out with a Remy motor whilst everyone else will have GM. What if something goes wrong with our Remy?”
GM designed the motor in the first place. Remy built to contract. GM owns the IP. I believe the new motors built by GM will be identical.