Normal Motors’ all-electric CAMI Meeting plant in Ontario is halting manufacturing of BrightDrop supply vans, Unifor stated Friday. Unifor is Canada’s largest non-public sector union, representing 320,000 staff.
The corporate will provoke short-term layoffs beginning April 14 and manufacturing will stall for 3 weeks, Mike Van Boekel, plant chair for Unifor Native 88, which represents hourly staff at CAMI, instructed the Detroit Free Press.
Staff will return for 2 weeks in Could for restricted manufacturing, after which the manufacturing unit will shut for one more 20 weeks. Throughout this downtime, GM plans to finish retooling work to arrange the ability for manufacturing of the 2026 mannequin yr of business electrical automobiles.
CAMI Meeting had run two shifts whereas producing Chevrolet BrightDrop automobiles. When manufacturing resumes in October, Unifor stated the plant will function on a single shift for the foreseeable future — a discount anticipated to influence 450 staff.
BrightDrop electrical supply vans are parked close to Normal Motors CAMI EV Meeting, Canada’s first full-scale electrical car manufacturing plant, in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, March 13, 2025.
“That is devastating for our members,” Van Boekel instructed the Detroit Free Press. “We’re dropping these shifts indefinitely.”
About 1,200 Native 88 members work there assembling Chevrolet BrightDrop EVs and developing battery modules and packs.
“It is a crushing blow to tons of of working households in Ingersoll and the encircling area who rely on this plant,” Unifor Nationwide President Lana Payne stated within the assertion. “Normal Motors should do every little thing in its energy to mitigate job loss throughout this downturn, and all ranges of presidency should step as much as help Canadian autoworkers and Canadian-made merchandise.”
GM Canada confirmed CAMI is making operational and employment changes to stability stock and align manufacturing schedules with present demand.
“GM stays dedicated to the way forward for BrightDrop, and the CAMI plant and can help staff via the transition,” the corporate stated in a press release emailed to the Free Press. “This adjustment is instantly associated to responding to market demand and rebalancing stock. Manufacturing of BrightDrop and EV battery meeting will stay at CAMI.”
GM’s struggles with BrightDrop stock come lower than a yr after the corporate folded the industrial vans into its Chevrolet model in a bid to spice up its efficiency.
GM has tried and failed to realize floor in opposition to opponents, together with Ford and Rivian, within the electrical van house, an effort additional hindered by the car’s excessive price ticket. Sam Fiorani, vice chairman of worldwide car forecasting at AutoForecast Options, stated the opaque commerce surroundings spurred by President Donald Trump’s vacillating tariff bulletins hardly aided the corporate’s U.S. gross sales projections.
“If there’s a tariff with Canada, how do you construct any car of quantity there to be offered within the U.S.?” Fiorani requested.
Tariffs with Canada currently stand at 25%, although the auto business continues to be searching for readability about whether or not automobiles and elements compliant with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Settlement are included.
GM produces BrightDrop 400 and BrightDrop 600 vans at CAMI Meeting, Canada’s — and GM’s — first full-scale all-electric car manufacturing plant, which required large funding to retool for EV manufacturing, together with funding support from each governments. Because the Free Press first reported, a glut of these slow-selling supply vans has constructed up on either side of the U.S.-Canada border.
CAMI produced 3,500 electrical Chevrolet BrightDrop supply vans final yr — in contrast with practically 200,000 Chevrolet Equinox crossovers the plant produced 5 years earlier — in keeping with the Automotive Information Knowledge & Analysis Heart. Of these, GM offered only one,529, in contrast with Ford’s 12,610 E-Transit automobiles and Rivian’s 13,243 EDV.
GM reported gross sales of simply 274 Chevrolet BrightDrop automobiles so far this year, up 7% from 256 offered within the first quarter of 2024.
Final month, a Free Press photographer captured photographs of tons of of automobiles lining a Flint storage lot. Reuters printed related images from CAMI in Ingersoll, Ontario.
A smaller part of BrightDrop EV supply vans are saved in rows in loads in Flint on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
CAMI reopened in late 2022 following a retooling interval outfitting the ability for electrical car manufacturing. Manufacturing stalled once more this yr with a scheduled two-week shutdown to “align manufacturing schedules and stability stock,” a GM spokesperson stated in a press release.
A part of the explanation BrightDrop gross sales are lagging within the U.S. is the comparatively excessive price ticket to nearest opponents. Earlier than incentives, the automobiles price about $74,000. Ford’s E-Transit van with prolonged battery vary, for instance, is $51,600 — greater than $20,000 cheaper — even earlier than making use of incentives.
GM launched BrightDrop in 2021 as an entirely owned subsidiary with expectations its income would prime $10 billion by 2030 with low-20% revenue margins.
BrightDrop CEO Travis Katz stated in 2022 that the corporate anticipated to be making 50,000 vans a yr beginning in 2025 and herald “a variety of income.” Katz left the corporate in late 2023 without specifying why as GM started reorganizing BrightDrop to operate much less independently and scale back prices.
“Make no mistake — the world is transferring quickly in the direction of electrification. If Canada and the U.S. hit pause now, we could by no means catch up,” Payne stated within the assertion. “We threat surrendering our future except we act decisively to help our personal business.”
The economics, and the dearth of charging infrastructure, seemingly made it troublesome for the corporate to discover a foothold within the U.S. market, Fiorani stated.
“It must be simple to persuade a enterprise which you can drive this factor. On paper, it’s a good suggestion. However enterprise house owners that aren’t used to taking dangers received’t purchase one thing they don’t perceive absolutely,” he stated. “In early 2020, when all people was delivering issues on to their properties, this was an ideal car for that market.”
Jackie Charniga covers Normal Motors for the Free Press. Attain her at jcharniga@freepress.com.
