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John Goreham Contributing Writer, GM-Trucks.com 11-26-2018 General Motors is expected to announce soon that the company will move to eliminate certain car models and close some plants that build the cars. This news seems to jive with our recent reporting about a workforce reduction among salaried employees. Reuters is reporting that the vehicle cuts will be significant and that some models will be eliminated. Separately, CTV News Canada is reporting that its sources say the Oshawa Plant in Canada that builds the Impala will be closing its operations. GM presently employs about 2,800 salaried and hourly union employees at this car plant. “While the union does not have complete details of the overall announcement we have been informed that, as of now, there is no product allocated to the Oshawa Assembly Plant past December 2019,” Unifor, the union that represents the Oshawa plant's hourly workers, said in its statement. “Based on commitments made during 2016 contract negotiations, Unifor does not accept this announcement and is immediately calling on GM to live up to the spirit of that agreement.” In related news, Toyota is also planning to reduce the number of car models it produces. The Financial Times reported this week that Jim Lentz, North America chief executive officer, said the company was “taking a hard look at all of the segments that we’re competing in. We have got a large number of passenger cars,” he said. “You would expect that to come down over time.” These changes would mirror Ford's plan to eliminate all but a couple of car models in favor of crossovers and trucks. Update: GM has confirmed the Oshawa plant news and added to its "Unallocated" list the Lordstown, Ohio and Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant in Detroit. In addition, GM is not planning any products for the Baltimore Operations in White Marsh, Maryland, and the Warren Transmission Operations in Warren, Michigan. GM's announcement focuses on re-aligning future product focus on electric vehicles. The announcement includes, - "GM is evolving its global product development workforce and processes to drive world-class levels of engineering in advanced technologies, and to improve quality and speed to market. Resources allocated to electric and autonomous vehicle programs will double in the next two years." - "GM has recently invested in newer, highly efficient vehicle architectures, especially in trucks, crossovers and SUVs. GM now intends to prioritize future vehicle investments in its next-generation battery-electric architectures. As the current vehicle portfolio is optimized, it is expected that more than 75 percent of GM’s global sales volume will come from five vehicle architectures by early next decade."
