Yesterday General Motors announced it's laying off 767 workers at its Hamtramck assembly plant because of low demand for the cars made there, the Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS. According to the company website those cars get 16 and 15 miles per gallon in the city, respectively.
Thanks to the recent UAW contract with General Motors, there's a guarantee that the plant will at least remain open. The contract also tells us that the saving grace of the plant, and the potential for jobs to be restored in the future, is the new Chevy Volt that will be built there starting in 2010.
The Chevy Volt will be a plug-in hybrid, which is the technology I think offers the best combination of fuel savings, low emissions, and convenience for those driving more than short distances.
This is a good sign for GM. I've been waiting for a Saturn hybrid that isn't an SUV for years, only to be disappointed by the meager mileage improvements and much higher cost of their new Saturn hybrid sedan.
I've heard auto-industry lobbyists make bizarre claims that cleaner car regulations will limit consumer choice, as though consumers are still demanding cars with terrible mileage in the days of $3.00 per gallon. It looks like, with the changes at the Hamtramck plant, that GM will finally start responding to market demand for more environmentally conscious cars.
Hopefully, this will be a turning point for the company and an end to the backward claims that producing environmentally friendly cars means losing jobs. As we see in Hamtramck, just the opposite is true. I wonder how many jobs could have been saved had they produced a good plug-in hybrid sooner?