This Automotive News Intelligence Report 2024 snapshot looks at 18 assembly plant projects at various stages of development. This is the fourth of five parts.
The project began last year and involves a 1-million-square-foot expansion to the 8-million-square-foot plant. BMW will increase the assembly area by about 800,000 square feet and the body shop by 300,000 square feet.BMW has not disclosed which models will be built at the factory — the automaker's largest in the world.
A 4-million-square-foot assembly plant, the automaker's largest, will become the centrepiece of its sprawling 3,600-acre, $5.6 billion BlueOval City manufacturing campus. Slated to begin production in 2026 , the plant will be home to a next-generation full-size electric pickup. Ford has said it will have capacity to produce up to 500,000 electric trucks per year. The automaker plans to employ 6,000 workers at the site, which it says will be its most efficient and environmentally friendly.
Once home to the Bolt EV, the Orion plant went down for retooling after Bolt production ended there late last year. The automaker delayed the start of electric pickup production until late 2025, citing"evolving EV demand" and the need to implement engineering improvements that will help with profitability.
Hyundai Motor Group's $5.5 billion Metaplant, an EV and battery complex outside Savannah, Ga., is slated to open in October. It will build six models for the Hyundai, Genesis and Kia brands, with the Hyundai Ioniq 5 as the first. The plant has a 300,000 annual capacity and will be able to add 200,000 depending on demand. The EVs will be powered by battery cells assembled on-site as part of a joint venture with LG Energy Solution.
Lucid did not say how much it was investing in the new operations specifically. But during its first-quarter earnings call in May, the company estimated capital expenditures of $1.5 billion this year, including Arizona"factory enhancements" that will raise annual production capacity to 90,000 vehicles from 30,000.
The automaker was to begin production of the first of two EVs — a Nissan and an Infiniti sedan — in Canton starting in June 2026. But, according to a supplier memo obtained by Automotive News, production plans have been paused. In the memo dated May 17, Nissan said it had adjusted the"development schedule" of the electric sedans"to enhance product competitiveness."