General Motors will spend $200m at its global powertrain engineering headquarters to build a new 138,000 sq ft test wing, expected to be completed during the second half of 2014.
The plan is part of GM’s previously announced commitment to invest $1.5bn in its North American facilities in 2013.
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The expansion will enable the automaker to consolidate work being done at four locations remote to the Pontiac campus, helping to reduce development timing. When the moves are complete, GM will have added approximately 400 jobs at the Pontiac campus.
Under the expansion plan, engineering development work currently being done at leased facilities in Wixom, Michigan; Castleton, Indiana and Torrance, California, will move to Pontiac. Also, GM R&D’s Propulsion Systems Research lab in Warren, Michigan, will relocate to Pontiac. GM previously announced that work being performed at its hydrogen fuel cell facility in Honeoye Falls, New York, would be consolidated in Pontiac in mid-2013.
The Performance Build Center, currently located at Wixom, will move to GM’s Chevrolet Corvette assembly plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, by the first quarter of 2014.
The new test wing is part of GM’s Powertrain Development Center. The 450,000 sq ft facility is one of the world’s largest and most technically advanced powertrain development centres, the automaker claims.
Facilities allow engineers to test engines under extreme conditions, including cold ambient temperatures, high RPMs, and repetitive starting and stopping, to assure durability, reliability and quality.
The work GM conducts at its Wixom Advanced Engineering Lab, including electric motor engineering development and performance engineering, will be transferred to Pontiac by mid-2015.
The Torrance Advanced Technology Center’s work on electric motor and power electronics engineering development will be transferred to Pontiac by the end of 2014.
Heavy-duty transmission, power electronics, hybrid and battery electric drive unit development work done at Castleton will be transferred to Pontiac by mid-2014.
And GM R&D’s Propulsion Systems Research Lab will be relocated to Pontiac during the second half of 2015.
Having completed a consolidation of seven southeastern Michigan powertrain engineering facilities in 2008, this wave of powertrain engineering consolidation will allow GM to cut 640,000 sq ft of floor space and eliminate three leased facilities in the United States.
