GM North America President Mark Reuss confirmed on 16 October that preparations will soon be under way at the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant to build the Cadillac ELR, a luxury coupe featuring the Chevrolet Volt’s extended-range or plug-in electric powertrain, starting in late 2013.
“The ELR will be in a class by itself, further proof of our commitment to electric vehicles and advanced technology,” Reuss told delegates at the SAE Convergence Conference in Detroit on 16 October.
The addition of the ELR to Detroit-Hamtramck represents a US$35m investment and increases total product investment to US$561m since December 2009. The ELR will be the first two-door car built at the plant since the 1999 Cadillac Eldorado.
The ELR is the production version of Cadillac’s Converj, the concept vehicle shown at the North American International Auto Show in 2009. The ELR will share the Volt’s electric propulsion system made up of a T-shaped lithium-ion battery, an electric drive unit, and a four-cylinder gasoline engine-generator. The lithium-ion battery will be built at GM’s Brownstown Battery Assembly plant in Brownstown, Michigan.
GM says Detroit-Hamtramck is the only US assembly plant that mass-produces extended-range electric vehicles, although Ford’s Energi PHEV version of the Focus will be built alongside other versions of the same model from early next year in what Ford will hope to be “mass’ volume. Detroit-Hamtramck is home to the Chevrolet Volt and its Opel Ampera, and Holden Volt counterparts, which GM exports to 21 countries from the plant.
