General Motors To Lay Off About 1700 Employees Ahead Of Chevrolet Malibu Phase-Out And Re-Tooling For EV Production (UPDATED)

Note: This story has been updated to add General Motors’ statement.

General Motors GM will lay off 1695 employees at its Fairfax Assembly and Stamping plant in Kansas City, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notice dated Sept. 19.

What Happened: The plant currently manufactures the Cadillac XT4 and the Chevrolet Malibu.

In May, GM said that the production of the Chevrolet Malibu would end in November. Production of the XT4 in Kansas will also be paused after January 2025.

The plant will then be retooled and will resume production in late 2025 with the next generation of Chevrolet Bolt EVs and the XT4, the company then said.

A General Motors spokesperson told Benzinga in a statement on Monday that the temporary layoff is aimed at facilitating the installation of new tooling at the plant until production resumes in mid-2025. GM will invest about $390 million for the retooling process, they added.

The initial layoffs, the spokesperson said, will take place in mid-November.

Why It Matters: The Chevrolet Bolt was GM’s best-selling electric vehicle until the company stopped production of its previous generation in December.

GM’s autonomous driving unit Cruise will also use the next-generation Bolt for its autonomous driving operations in the future, company CEO Mary Barra said in July.

Check out more of Benzinga's Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.

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