GM to Build Small Cars in Michigan
Posted on 26. Jun, 2009 by admin in GM, Honda, News, Toyota
GM has chosen its assembly plant in Orion Township, Mich., to build new, small, fuel-efficient vehicles. The Orion plant won out over plants in Tennessee and Wisconsin. All three locations lobbied the automaker hard, but in the end GM chose Orion largely due to a generous tax abatement.
Orion Township increased GM’s tax abatement for personal property tax from 12 to 15 years, and Orion Township Supervisor Michael Gibb has said the abatement could be 100% of those taxes. This would save GM $100 million over the next 25 years.
That’s a healthy incentive to be sure, but it will save roughly 1,200 jobs at a plant that was supposed to be shut down.
GM expects to build as many as 160,000 small vehicles. One likely candidate to be that vehicle is the Chevy Spark, but current popular small cars like the Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris don’t sell in those kinds of numbers. In 2008, even with $4 gas, the Yaris sold just over 100,000 units, and the Fit sold almost 80,000 units. So far this year, sales of those two models are down 39.7% and 17.7%, respectively.
GM Picks Orion Twp. To Build Small Cars (Detroit Free Press)
