General Motors will lay off 1,140 workers at Factory Zero, its Detroit battery-electric assembly plant due to weak demand for products like the GMC Hummer EV and Chevrolet Silverado EV. The automaker also is facing pressure from Canadian authorities to come up with an alternative plan for an Ontario plant where it is ending production of all-electric Bright Drop vans. More from Headlight.News.
Weakening demand for battery-electric vehicles will cost the jobs of 1,140 workers at General Motors’ Factory Zero, the company announcing they will be targeted for permanent layoff effective January 5.
The cuts come at a time when GM has reduced production at several other EV facilities in the U.S., among other things putting about 2,000 workers on layoff at battery plants in Ohio and Tennessee. The automaker also announced plans to end production of its all-electric Bright Drop commercial vans, leaving uncertain the future of its CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario.
The layoffs at Detroit’s Factory Zero are being described as permanent and are “due to production schedule adjustment required to adapt to slower near-term EV adoption,” GM said in a statement sent to Michigan officials, as required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN Act, which requires employers with more than 100 employees to notify the state in the event of a mass layoff.
Weakening EV demand
EV sales actually set an all-time record in September, while demand for the first nine months of 2025 rose about 8% over the same period the year before. GM itself posted a 137.44% year-over-year gain during those three quarters, the automaker now second only to Tesla in terms of the U.S. EV market, delivering 144,545 all-electric models through the end of September.
But those numbers were artificially inflated, many potential buyers racing to lock down deals during the third quarter, as Congress voted to phase out EV tax credits of up to $7,500 per vehicle at the end of September. October EV sales plunged sharply – though GM only releases its figures on a quarterly basis.
While some GM products had surged up the EV sales charts, others have lagged well behind the company’s expectations, notably the full-size trucks built at Factory Zero, such as the Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Hummer EV. And even though Bright Drop sales more than tripled during the first three quarters of 2025, to 4,751 vans, according to Automotive News, that was still well short of GM’s expectations.
Factory Zero’s future increasingly uncertain
First opened in 1985 as a Cadillac assembly plant, the facility was renamed Factory Zero on October 16, 2020. It was positioned as the centerpiece of the carmaker’s shift to EV production – part of GM CEO Mary Barra’s plan to put the company on what she called a “path to an all-electric future.”
Barra continues to say EVs are the industry’s future but has acknowledged the process will take longer than expected, among other things ordering the development of hybrid version of some of the company’s larger models.
GM has also shifted back from EVs to conventional powertrains at a plant in the Detroit suburb of Orion Township. Meanwhile, it has ordered a series of temporary production cuts at Factory Zero while already trimming back the number of shifts. The latest cuts will leave the facility operating just one shift a day.
More GM EV News
- GM Keeps Cutting EV Production
- GM Turns Q3 Profit Despite EV Write-Off
- Cadillac Takes EV Performance to New Level with Elevated Velocity Concept
Cutbacks spread
“The commercial electric van market has been developing much slower than expected, and changes to the regulatory framework and fleet incentives have made the business even more challenging,” Barra said during GM’s third-quarter earnings call, revealing plans to end production of the Bright Drop vans.
The last of those electric vans rolled out of the CAMI plant on October 21 and GM was told by Canada’s Industry Ministry to provide alternative plans for the facility within 15 days. It has now missed that deadline.
“Our community is terrified of what the future holds and is anxiously awaiting” word from GM, Minister of Parliament Arpan Khanna wrote in a social media post.
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