2017 Chevrolet SonicSupply: Common MotorsCommon Motors confirmed plans Tuesday to discontinue the Chevrolet Sonic, a subcompact automotive as soon
2017 Chevrolet Sonic
Supply: Common Motors
Common Motors confirmed plans Tuesday to discontinue the Chevrolet Sonic, a subcompact automotive as soon as synonymous with a brand new period of U.S. small automotive manufacturing for the post-bankrupt automaker.
Manufacturing of the Sonic at GM’s Orion Meeting plant in suburban Detroit will finish in October to make approach for a brand new all-electric car referred to as the Bolt EUV in 2021, in response to firm spokeswoman Megan Soule. The brand new automotive is a bigger model of the Chevrolet Bolt EV, which the plant presently produces alongside the Sonic.
GM determined to axe the Sonic “as a result of declining demand,” in response to Soule. Since promoting practically 100,000 Sonics in 2014, gross sales have declined yearly by between 15% to greater than %. GM bought lower than 14,000 of the automobiles final yr.
Manufacturing of the Sonic lasted longer than many anticipated amid low fuel costs, client choice shifting to crossovers and GM’s plans to pivot to all-electric automobiles.
Common Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra publicizes a $300 million funding within the GM Orion Meeting Plant plant for electrical and self-driving automobiles on the Orion Meeting Plant on March 22, 2019 in Lake Orion, Michigan.
Invoice Pugliano | Getty Photographs
Because the automaker emerged from its government-backed chapter in 2009, the Sonic was an emblem of a brand new period of U.S. small automotive manufacturing for the automaker because the Obama administration pushed for extra fuel-efficient automobiles.
In 2011, then-U.S. President Barack Obama toured the power with South Korea President Lee Myung-bak to advertise the U.S.-Korea Free Commerce Settlement. Auto elements for the Sonic have been being imported from South Korea. A earlier model of the automotive had been exported from the Asian nation to the U.S.
The plant’s roughly 1,125 workers won’t be impacted by the manufacturing change, Soule stated.
The discontinuation of the Sonic will go away Chevrolet with the Spark and Malibu as its solely remaining passenger sedans.