General Motors and the UAW confirmed Wednesday that the automaker will build the next-generation Cadillac SRX at its Spring Hill manufacturing plant, where it also will invest another $185 million to build new gasoline engines. The engine work retains 390 jobs, GM said.
The SRX crossover is currently built in Mexico. As part of the last national labor agreement with the United Auto Workers, GM agreed to relocate production of a vehicle from Mexico, which will bring jobs back to the U.S. The automaker previously announced $350 million in investment at Spring Hill for two midsize vehicles which are expected to create or retain about 1,800 jobs. The SRX is one of those vehicles.
The SRX has been Cadillac’s top-selling nameplate through July. Sales of the SRX crossover have totaled 33,463 through the first seven months of the year, up 15.7 percent.
Workers at Spring Hill build four-cylinder versions of the Chevrolet Equinox crossover that supplements production at two other facilities. The plant is the sole manufacturing location for the special white-diamond color Equinox. The plant is billed as a highly flexible operation, with the ability to build any car or crossover.
GM’s Spring Hill complex employs about 2,300, including about 1,600 hourly workers, 300 salaried workers and about 400 from third parties. GM’s largest plant in North America includes engine and stamping plants, and injection molding and painting operations.
GM said Spring Hill is one of six global locations the company has chosen to produce the engine which the company is building to support customer demand for fuel-sipping engines. Flint is another site; others are in Mexico, Hungary, South Korea and China.
The company did not provide timing on when Spring Hill will begin building the engines, but said it is part of an all-new set of Ecotec powerplants that will be used in 27 GM vehicles by the 2017 model year. The company said the engines will power many “high-volume small car and compact crossover vehicles.”
“These announcements today reinforce our absolute faith in this facility and our strong commitment to this community,” GM North America Manufacturing Manager Arvin Jones said.
The new Ecotec products include 11 engines with three- and four-cylinder variants. The company said the engines will range from 1-liter to 1.5-liter engines, some turbocharged, and with horsepower ratings ranging from 75 to 165 horsepower.
Spring Hill builds three Ecotec engines now: the 2.-liter turbocharged, 2.4-liter four-cylinder and 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine used in vehicles such as the Chevy Malibu.
