GM to close Detroit battery-assembly plant, but not for reasons you might think

What BBN said about it

1. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorGeneral Motors is closing its Brownstown battery assembly plant in Detroit, and the company says it has nothing to do with its electric vehicle strategy, TechCrunch reports.

2. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorGM says the site was leased and the lease was nearing its end, so I'd call it a graduation, not a closure.

3. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe plant is expected to be decommissioned by summer twenty twenty-seven, when the lease expires.

4. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorIt built battery packs for the Cadillac Celestiq and the Corvette E-Ray.

5. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorAnd the workers are being offered jobs at other nearby facilities, which is a very warm way to say reassigned.

6. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorGM wouldn't confirm which facilities, though. Drive Tesla says the plant once employed around three hundred people.

7. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorAround three hundred. And now?

8. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorFewer than a dozen, in a building of about four hundred eighty thousand square feet.

9. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorWell, GM did lease another Detroit building meant for hydrogen, so the space is simply moving on to its next chapter.

10. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorFewer than a dozen people, four hundred eighty thousand square feet, and a lease. It did graduate. Nobody came.