GM investing $760 million in Ohio plant to build drive units for EV Hummer, Silverado, and Sierra
General Motors is preparing for an all-electric future as the automaker announced Friday it would be investing $760 million into its Toledo, Ohio, plant as it gets the facility ready to produce drive units for future GM EV trucks.
The automaker has been active these past few months as it gears up for what’s expected to be a massive transition to electric vehicles. Friday’s announcement is the latest in a string of events, indicating GM is aggressively targeting the EV market.
GM’s CFO claimed the automaker was hitting an “infliction point” in scaling EV production as it worked to become a leader in battery cell production.
The company’s joint venture (Ultium Cells) with LG Energy has four planned battery cell plants, one opening in each of the next four years, as the first one in Ohio began production earlier this month.
After releasing the highly anticipated Chevy Equinox EV, starting around $30,000 according to GM, the automaker unveiled its plans to provide “EVs for everyone,” including SUVs, crossovers, luxury, pickups, and more.
However, many people question GM’s ability to keep up with demand after EV sales have been disappointing as production ability continues to see setbacks.
In September, GM made several initiatives to make its vision a reality. On September 15, GM announced it would invest half a billion to upgrade its Indiana stamping facility to be able to support future EVs. And then, on September 20, GM revealed it would advocate for new EPA standards to accelerate EV adoption.
GM’s announcement Friday to upgrade its Ohio plant to get it ready to make EV drive units is another step in the right direction as the automaker looks to make good on its promise of EVs for everyone.
GM upgrades Ohio plant to build electric drive units
GM’s 2.8 million square feet facility in Toledo, Ohio, manufactures transmissions for several iconic GM models. Now, the plant will be the automaker’s first US power train facility to convert to producing EV-related products.
According to the press release, the upgrades will prepare the facility to manufacture electric drive units (EDU) for GM EV trucks, such as the GMC Hummer EV, GMC Sierra EV, and Chevy Silverado EV.
Gerald Johnson, executive vice president of GM global manufacturing and sustainability, speaks on how the new investments benefit both facility workers as well as the automaker, stating:
Our Toledo team has a long, proud history of building great products and they have worked hard to earn this investment. This investment helps build job security for our Toledo team for years to come and is the next step on our journey to an all-electric future.
Construction is slated to begin this month. The team at Toledo will continue manufacturing transmissions while scaling the ability to make drive units for its EV models at the same time. The plant has about 1,500 employees currently, yet GM says the investment will “bring employees along in the company’s EV transformation.”
Electrek’s Take
GM is making a lot of big promises with its campaign to provide “EVs for everyone.” To have that type of capacity will require an ample amount of manufacturing ability.
The few announcements from GM this month show the automaker is taking steps to ease the company’s transition. Will it be able to fulfill its goals? That will be the key question going forward as GM comes under the microscope for its aggressive EV campaigning.
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Tesla is being forced to remove 64 Superchargers at stations along the New Jersey Turnpike as the local authorities have decided to go with another provider.
Elon Musk claimed corruption without any evidence.
The New Jersey Turnpike is a system of controlled-access toll roads that consists of a 100-mile section of important New Jersey highways.
In 2020, Tesla signed an agreement with the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA)and built 64 Supercharger stalls at 8 stations along the turnpike.
The agreement has now expired, and instead of renewing it, the authority decided to give an exclusive agreement to Applegreen, which already operates in all service areas on the turnpike.
Tesla issued a statement saying that it is disappointed with the situation, but that it has prepared for this by building new stations off the turnpike for the last few years:
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (“NJTA”) has chosen a sole third-party charging provider to serve the New Jersey Turnpike and is not allowing us to co-locate. As a result, NJTA requested 64 existing Supercharger stalls on the New Jersey Turnpike to not be renewed and be decommissioned. We have been preparing for 3 years for this potential outcome by building 116 stalls off the New Jersey Turnpike, ensuring no interruption for our customers. The map below outlines the existing replacement Superchargers, and Trip Planner will adjust automatically.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk went a step further and called it “corruption” without any evidence.
The automaker’s agreement with NJTA expired, and they decided to go with a sole provider. Applegreen will reportedly deploy chargers at all 21 turnpike service stops.
Here are Tesla’s replacement Superchargers off the turnpike:
Electrek’s Take
I don’t like the decision from the Turnpike authorities. More chargers are better than fewer chargers. However, I also don’t like Musk calling everything he doesn’t like fraud or corruption.
While I agree with Tesla that it is unreasonable to force them to remove the stations, it appears to be an oversight on Tesla’s part not to have included stipulations in their agreement to prevent such a scenario from happening in the first place.
Who signs a deal to deploy millions of dollars worth of charging equipment with only the right to operate them there for 5 years?
It looks like Tesla knew this was coming since it specifically built several new Supercharger stations off the turnpike to prepare for this.
On the other hand, I don’t like the Turnpike Authority using the term “universal charger” as if this is a positive for Applegreen. They are going to use CCS, and everyone is moving to NACS in North America.
Yes, for a while, only Tesla owners will have to use adapters, but that will soon change and the current NACS Supercharger will be even more useful.
At the end of the day, the stations are already there. Let them operate them.
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![E-quipment highlight: ZQUIP heavy equipment battery swap demo [video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/06/case_zquip_MAIN.png?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
ZQUIP is working hard to bring more smart, efficient, modular power solutions to commercial job sites everywhere – and at the core of their vision for the future is battery-swap technology. You can see just how easy it is make that happen here.
MOOG Construction’s energy skunkworks ZQUIP made headlines last year by bringing the cordless power tool battery model to the world of industrial-grade heavy equipment.
“The 700V ZQUIP Energy Modules are at the core of this innovation, said Chris LaFleur, managing director for QUIP. “ZQUIP modules are interchangeable across any machine we convert regardless of size, type, or manufacturer, and will enable a level of serviceability, runtime, and value that is far greater than current battery solutions.”
At this year’s bauma equipment show in Munich, Germany, however, ZQUIP followed up that headline by making it even easier for job sites to make every kilowatt count by enabling them to switch from diesel power, to electric, and back again, on the same machine, on the job site.
Why you want that
Most machines on most sites sit idle most of the time, but converting all those machines to battery electric power means that megawatts of battery capacity are being wasted. By utilizing swappable batteries, job sites can do what technicians and contractors have been doing for years with power tools: quickly get the energy they need to the tool they need when they need it, without the need to have a dedicated battery for every tool.
If you need to be able to run the machine non-stop and don’t have a reliable way to recharge your batteries quickly enough, a 140 kW diesel generator is built into a package the same size and shape as the batteries. In fact, if you look closely at the CASE excavator below (on the right), the “battery” on the right is, in fact, a diesel Energy Module.
The demo video, below, shows a pair of CASE-based electric excavators – one wheeled, one tracked – operating on ZQUIP’s Energy Modules. It takes less than two minutes to remove one battery, and presumably about the same time to swap another one in, for a 5 (ish) minute swap.
Even if you call it ten, by eliminating the need to get the entire machine up and out for charging (or for service, if there’s an issue with the battery/controllers), the ZQUIP battery swap construction equipment solution seems like a good one.
ZQUIP HDEV battery swap
SOURCE | IMAGES: ZQUIP.
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Environment
Trump administration is convinced massive Alaska energy project will find investors despite steep cost
The Trump administration is confident that a massive liquified natural gas project in Alaska will find investors despite its enormous cost.
President Donald Trump has pushed Alaska LNG as a national priority since taking office. Alaska has already spent years trying to build an 800-mile pipeline from the North Slope above the Arctic Circle south to the Cook Inlet, where the gas would be cooled and shipped to U.S. allies in Asia.
But Alaska LNG has never gotten off the ground due to a stratospheric price tag of more than $40 billion. Trump has pushed Japan and South Korea in particular to invest in the project, threatening them with higher tariffs if they don’t offer trade deals that suit him.
“If you get the commercial offtakers for the gas, financing is pretty straightforward,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. “There [are] countries around the world looking to shrink their trade deficit with the United States, and of course, a very easy way to do that is to buy more American energy,” Wright said.
Energy analysts, however, are skeptical of the project. Alaska LNG “doesn’t have a clear cut commercial logic,” Alex Munton, director of global gas and LNG research at Rapidan Energy, told CNBC in April.
“If it did, it would have had a lot more support than it has thus far, and this project has been on the planning board for literally decades,” Munton said.
Defense Department support
Wright said the project would be built in stages and initially serve domestic demand in Alaska, which faces declining natural gas supplies in the Cook Inlet. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the Department of Defense is ready to support the project with its resources.
“They’re ready to sign on to take an offtake agreement from this pipeline to get gas to our super strategic, important bases across Alaska,” Burgum said of the Pentagon in a CNBC interview at Prudhoe Bay.
Alaska LNG, if completed, would deliver U.S. natural gas to Japan in about eight days, compared to about 24 days for U.S. Gulf Coast exports that pass through the congested Panama Canal, Burgum said. It would also avoid contested waters in the South China Sea that LNG exports from the Middle East pass through, the interior secretary said.
Wright said potential Asian investors have questions about the timeline and logistics of Alaska LNG. The pipeline could start delivering LNG to southern Alaska in 2028 or 2029, with exports to Asia beginning sometime in the early 2030s, Wright said.
Glenfarne Group, the project’s lead developer, told CNBC in April that a final investment decision is expected in the next six to 12 months on the leg of a proposed pipeline that runs from the North Slope to Anchorage. Glenfarne is a privately-held developer, owner and operator of energy infrastructure based in New York City and Houston.
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