GM Sparks Backlash Over $1B Plan For Electric Vehicle Production In Mexico

General Motors GM has generated an angry response in its hometown of Detroit to its $1-billion plan to build electric vehicles in Mexico.

¡Ay, Caramba! The company did not announce the news through its English-language communications channels, but instead dropped word via a Spanish-language press release from its Mexican subsidiary.

The electric vehicles will be built at GM’s Ramos Arizpe production complex. The company plans to begin producing batteries and components for the electric vehicles later this year, with full vehicle production slated to start in 2023.

Related Link:Ford To Build $185M EV Battery Research Center

No Muy Bueno: Closer to GM headquarters, reaction to the news was unpleasant.

The United Auto Workers Union issued a statement accusing the company of hypocritical behavior that bordered on being anti-American.

“At a time when General Motors is asking for a significant investment by the U.S. government in subsidizing electric vehicles, this is a slap in the face for not only UAW members and their families but also for U.S. taxpayers and the American workforce,” said UAW Vice President Terry Dittes, director of the General Motors department, in a statement.

“Taxpayer money should not go to companies that utilize labor outside the U.S. while benefiting from American government subsidies. This is not the America any of us signed on for. Frankly, it is unseemly.”

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) also weighed in by stating, “Electric vehicles must be built here in America by the finest workforce in the world – the American worker. Not one American dollar should support our own jobs being shipped off to Mexico – especially when we have the workers and the technology to manufacture the best vehicles of the future here at home.”

The new plant will be the second outside of the U.S. where GM is producing electric vehicles.

In January, the company announced plans to produce its BrightDrop electrical commercial vehicle at its CAMI manufacturing facility in Ontario. The company also has three U.S. plants focused on electric vehicle production: Orion Assembly in Lake Orion, Michigan; the Factory Zero Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center and the Spring Hill assembly plant in Tennessee.

(Photo by Jason Mrachina Flickr Creative Commons.)