GM May Build U.S. Caddy Assembly Plant

General Motors Corp. today is expected to announce that it will build a $558-million Cadillac assembly plant in Lansing, Mich., scrapping a plan to use suppliers to make entire sections of cars. It would be GM’s first North American plant since it conceived and built a Saturn factory in Tennessee in the mid-1980s. The plant, scheduled to open in 2001, will build more than 200,000 luxury vehicles a year and employ 1,500 workers within three years. The facility will produce Cadillac Cateras and other luxury lines, and is designed to switch to other models on short notice as consumer tastes change.

GM executives say that’s a better alternative than the so-called Yellowstone project they considered in the last two years, which would have had suppliers do much of the assembly, upsetting the United Auto Workers union. The decision to build the plant follows the Cadillac division’s 2% sales decline in 1999, when imported luxury vehicles surpassed both Cadillac and Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln divisions for the first time. Analysts say GM’s major objective with the new plant is streamlined manufacturing that could allow GM to build a car in less than 20 hours.