Chevrolet Volt plant to close four weeks
Bernie DeVold conducts a quality inspection on a Chevrolet Volt on the production line at the General Motors Hamtramck assembly plant in Hamtramck, Mich. Credit: AP, 2010
It will be the second time this year that the plant, which straddles the border of Detroit and the city of Hamtramck, has stopped making Volts.
During the shutdown, GM will do some retooling and other work to prepare for production early next year of the 2014 Chevrolet Impala sedan. The plant will begin building preproduction prototypes of the redesigned Impala this fall.
The 2013 Impala is now made at a GM plant in Oshawa, Ontario. Production of the current-model Impala will continue in Ontario through the second quarter of next year, GM said.
The Volt is "doing great" and gaining sales each month and GM officials expect to report strong August sales as well, said GM spokesman Dave Darovitz.
Sales of the plug-in hybrid car are up 272 percent since last year, but are below initial expectations when GM launched the Volt in late 2010, followed by its near-identical version for Europe, the Opel Ampera.
Some 1,200 hourly workers at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant will receive unemployment compensation during the four-week shutdown period, which amounts to about 90 percent of their normal pay, a union source said.
The plant's single 10-hour shift works four days a week. That single shift will be suspended for four weeks beginning Sept. 17, supplier and union sources said.
GM would not say whether the number of workers will rise once Impala production has fully shifted to the Detroit-Hamtramck plant.
