Manoli Katakis 
General Motors is maintaining its commitment to the internal combustion engine with this morning’s $1 billion USD announcement into its Flint, Michigan manufacturing facilities. Specifically, $788 million USD into Flint Assembly for GM’s next-generation Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD trucks, which will be ICE powered. Plant updates will include a body shop building expansion, general assembly conveyor expansion, and new tooling and equipment.The remaining $233 million USD will go into Flint Metal Center for new stamping dies to support production of GM’s next-generation ICE HD trucks, as well as press refurbishments and new equipment.
The investment puts GM’s total USA investment tab for its manufacturing facilities at $30.5 billion USD since 2013, with $2.088 billion of that going into Flint Assembly alone. Along with Flint, GM also builds its HD trucks in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Along with the today’s 10-figure announcement, The General has also put another $579 million in Flint Engine Operations for sixth-generation Small Block V8 engine production, and $103.5 million in Davison Road Processing Center for technology upgrades to improve workplace safety and ergonomics.
This major investment announcement from GM is a change-up from the all-electric emphasis from years prior, which could signal a potential shift in the company’s future product strategy and outlook for electric vehicles. That said, it’s expected that its stalwart trucks could go electric, or some other alternative powertrain, before 2035.
GM said that it won’t provide a timeline of when to expect the next-generation Silverado HD and Sierra HD, but it’s pretty easy to take an educated guess. Considering that both of these trucks were recently refreshed for the 2024 model year, and that the last kind of investment of this magnitude happened around 2015 (four years before the T1-generation GM HD trucks launched out of Flint), we could see production of the next-generation Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD happen sometime by 2026 or 2027. Before that happens, though, we could see more big updates to the existing big trucks, such as a powertrain refresh. We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?
