Glitzier EVs Bound for Detroit-Hamtramck?

The past 24 hours has been all about electric propulsion and domestic nameplates, and this tidbit is right up the same street.

Hot on the heels of General Motors’ ratified UAW contract, in which the automaker pledges to keep its once-endangered Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant open, an automotive forecaster claims there’s more product headed to that facility than initially thought.

LMC Automotive, speaking to Automotive News, claims two new products will join the unspecified “electric pickup” and EV van GM has planned for the site. That pickup is GM’s answer to Ford’s development of an electric F-150; both are expected to appear around the same time — 2021.

Currently, Detroit-Hamtramck, which was once slated to close come January 2020, is still cranking out Cadillac CT6s and Chevrolet Impalas.

LMC claims the pickup and van, the latter of which could be a green rival to the Ford Transit (full-size Chevy Express and GMC Savana production is expected to continue into a third decade), will see production commence in 2021. Two years after that, LMC says, a brace of new EVs will appear. New EVs, but with old names.

GM hasn’t confirmed it, but LMC says the two vehicles will be electric versions of the GMC Sierra and Cadillac Escalade. This raises the question of what form the upcoming electric pickup will take. Are we to expect a standalone model? Surely GM’s planning to fight fire with fire in the full-size segment. If so, why the need for a Sierra variant, unless the first truck is an electrified Chevy Silverado?

As for the Escalade, the model enters a new generation in 2020 (expect to see photos and information on that revamp in short order). An electric version of Cadillac’s hulking range-topper would assist in “greening” the model’s image and help the brand do battle with a midsize Lincoln electric SUV expected to start production at Flat Rock Assembly in 2023. A more fitting challenger to that model would be Cadillac’s unnamed EV crossover, possibly due out in 2022.

That Caddy will be the first GM EV to adopt the company’s new, dedicated electric architecture.

[Image: Sajeev Mehta/TTAC]