General Motors Starts Production of Chevrolet Sonic at Orion Township

The giant car manufacturer General Motors has started production at the Orion Township assembly facility of the Chevrolet Sonic. The model is expected to enter dealerships this fall, being one of the few subcompactvehicle manufactured in the United States. When giving an official speech Kenneth Knight, General Motors Executive Director of Global and North America Manufacturing and Engineering, made a joke saying that “the launch must be going well because my phone isn’t ringing off the hook,” as related by autoweek.com.

Also, Knight declined to specify how quickly the plant will rev up the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic production at full speed. Knight also believes that Orion has the additional challenge of starting production of the Buick Verano compact in the coming months. The Verano is the Chevrolet Cruze's brother made in GM’s Lordstown, Ohio. Side comments of the conference revealed that logistics at Orion are more complicated than other GM North American plants.

The difficult logistics at Orion are in part caused by the fact that a higher percentage of parts are being imported, because the Sonic’s architecture was developed in South Korea, meaning that GM must consider inventory and supply a priority when considering manufacturing changes at the plant, in order to bypass this unpleasant events more of that parts will be shifted to North America.

Chevy Sonic engines are being imported from Mexico and South Korea. Bringing the 2012 Chevy Sonic to the U.S. was made possible by a unique labor agreement with the UAW.