GM to invest $23.5 million for electric components in Baltimore

General Motors said on September 29 that it will invest $23.5 million for additional production of vehicle electrification components on the site of the Baltimore Transmission Plant, where the first electric motor manufacturing facility in the U.S. will be operated by a major automaker.

The new investment will create 11 job openings to be filled in accordance with the UAW-GM National Agreement.

"This will allow us to strengthen our core electrification components expertise," said GM manufacturing manager Arvin Jones. "We'll have more to say about specific products later."  

The investments in the White Marsh facility will be made with the assistance from the Recovery Act funding announced in August 2009 by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Wednesday's announcement is in addition to the $246 million investment announced in January to build a high-volume electric drive production facility for GM's next-generation rear-wheel drive Two-mode Hybrid system. The addition of electric motor production, to begin in 2013, will take place in a separate facility to be built on the same site as the Baltimore plant. The January investment will create about 200 jobs in three states, including Maryland.

Designing and manufacturing electric motors at Baltimore Transmission allows GM to more efficiently control the design, materials and production processes as well as reduce costs and improve performance, quality, reliability and manufacturability.