GM is closing a Michigan battery plant that once had about 300 workers

General Motors is closing Brownstown Battery Assembly, a leased plant in Brownstown, Michigan, south of Detroit, where workers built batteries for the Cadillac Celestiq and the Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray. The site now employs fewer than a dozen people, down from roughly 300, and GM intends to decommission it when the current lease ends next summer. A company spokesperson says the closure has nothing to do with the automaker’s electric vehicle strategy.

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What Brownstown Battery Assembly made

The plant opened in 2009 and covers about 480,000 square feet, according to CarScoops, which reported the closure on Oct. 23 and attributed its headcount figures to Automotive News. Automotive News was the first outlet to report the plan; TechCrunch and Electrive followed on Oct. 20 and Oct. 21 respectively. Over its life the site handled components for the Chevrolet Volt, then battery packs for the Celestiq, Cadillac’s hand-built flagship electric sedan, and a small battery and electric motor for the plug-in hybrid Corvette E-Ray.

It also served GM’s hydrogen ambitions. CarScoops says GM and Honda partly used the building for fuel cell development, and that the partnership behind that work has ended, leaving the plant with a shrinking list of products and a lease that no longer matched any long-term program.

A shrinking workforce at Brownstown

The headcount is the clearest sign of how far the plant had already wound down. CarScoops reports that the Brownstown site now has fewer than a dozen staff, compared with roughly 300 workers before. Neither TechCrunch nor Electrive gave a current figure, so the number rests on the Automotive News reporting that CarScoops relays rather than on a GM statement.

GM has not published a closing date beyond the lease. CarScoops puts the decommissioning at next summer, when the lease expires, and says GM no longer needs the building. Because the lease is the stated trigger, the timeline is tied to a real estate contract more than to a production schedule, which explains why a plant with so few people left can stay open for months.

GM’s explanation and the reported reasons

GM confirmed the closure to TechCrunch through a spokesperson, who said it is “not related to GM’s electric vehicle strategy”. TechCrunch’s Tim De Chant wrote on Oct. 20 that GM leased the site and the lease was close to expiring. The spokesperson did not say where employees and work would go beyond naming other GM facilities, which the company declined to identify.

The business picture around the plant is less tidy than that explanation suggests. CarScoops notes that the Corvette E-Ray has been replaced by the Corvette Grand Sport X, which removes one of the plant’s two remaining products, and describes the Celestiq as a small seller. TechCrunch adds that federal EV production and sales incentives were repealed under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and that GM has spoken less about EVs since, while insisting it has not abandoned full electrification.

Electrive counts $10.9 billion in EV-related charges that GM has recorded since the second quarter of 2025, citing Reuters. That figure covers the whole company, not Brownstown, and it frames the closure as one of several moves in a broad pullback. Electrive also notes that a Chevrolet Bolt production cut was reported roughly three weeks before the Brownstown news and that the $7,500 federal purchase incentive ended in September 2025, two pieces of background that help explain why GM is trimming EV-related real estate even as it says full electrification remains the goal.

Jobs, hydrogen and Indiana

CarScoops says GM is offering jobs at nearby facilities, as its agreement with the United Auto Workers requires, and that any continuing work will move to other GM plants. With fewer than a dozen people on site, the number of workers affected is small compared with the roughly 300 who once worked there, but the plant’s end removes a dedicated Michigan site for low-volume Cadillac battery assembly.

Two other recent GM decisions fit the same pattern. In Detroit, GM partnered with Piston Automotive in 2024 on a 300,000-square-foot hydrogen fuel cell plant; that partnership was canceled, GM took over the lease, and the building’s future use is unclear. In Indiana, GM joined Samsung SDI in 2024 on a $3.5 billion battery plant, and about two months before the CarScoops article it sold its 49.99% stake to Samsung for an undisclosed sum, with the site initially making energy storage batteries.

For Michigan readers the practical questions are which plants absorb the Celestiq and any remaining E-Ray work, and whether the leased building finds a new tenant after GM hands it back next summer. GM has answered neither in public so far, and the company has not said whether any of the remaining Brownstown employees will be placed at its other Detroit-area sites or elsewhere in Michigan. Readers following the story should expect more detail as the lease end approaches next summer, since decommissioning a battery assembly site involves removing equipment, clearing the building and returning it to its owner.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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