General Motors will place 1,300 manufacturing employees on temporary layoff at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, idling the flagship EV facility known as Factory ZERO for four weeks as the automaker cuts electric vehicle output to match demand.

The shutdown runs from 16 March 2026 through 13 April 2026. GM confirmed the move in a statement to Crain's Detroit Business.

"Factory ZERO will temporarily adjust production to align EV production with market demand," Kevin Kelly, Senior Director of Corporate News Relations at GM, told the publication.

Affected workers will move to temporary layoff status with potential eligibility for supplemental pay and benefits under the GM-UAW national contract, according to Kelly's statement.

Third retrenchment in two years

The pause follows a US$6bn charge related to EV investments that GM recorded in January 2026. It also comes on top of the elimination of 1,114 positions — reported as 1,114 in the original WARN Act filing figure of 1,140 — at the same plant during 2025, announced through a WARN Act notice to the State of Michigan. GM cited the cuts as "due to production schedule adjustment required to adapt to slower near-term EV adoption."

The 2025 redundancies hit Quality Operators, Assembly Operators and Material Operators across multiple operational roles.

The temporary structure of the current shutdown signals GM is holding onto workforce capability rather than cutting headcount further. Retaining trained operators with EV-specific assembly skills avoids the cost of recruiting and retraining when volumes recover — a calculation that matters at a plant packed with automated assembly systems and battery integration capability.

The plant and the program

Factory ZERO opened in 1985 and once built the Cadillac CT6 and Chevrolet Impala. GM spent US$2.2bn retooling the site in 2020 for all-electric production. It now assembles the GMC HUMMER EV Pickup, the GMC HUMMER EV SUV, the Cadillac LYRIQ and the Cruise Origin.

At the reopening, attended by then-President Joe Biden, GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra said: "GM's manufacturing expertise is key to achieving our all-electric future. This is a monumental day for the entire GM team. We retooled Factory ZERO with the best, most advanced technology in the world to build the highest quality electric vehicles for our customers."

That US$2.2bn capital base now sits against falling volumes. GM's 2026 financial guidance, issued with its 2025 earnings, projects EV losses to improve by US$1bn to US$1.5bn through "right-sizing EV capacity" and significantly lowering volume.

Trucks pick up the slack

While Detroit-Hamtramck idles, GM's Flint Assembly plant in Michigan — its longest continuously operating assembly site in North America, producing trucks since 1947 — will move to six-day-per-week operations from June 2026, according to the Wall Street Journal. The schedule change responds to sustained demand for heavy-duty pickups including the Chevrolet Silverado 2500.

"General Motors is making strategic adjustments to Flint Assembly's production schedule to align with strong customer demand," a GM spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

Flint built its 16 millionth vehicle in 2026, and GM recorded its best total Silverado sales in five years in financial year 2025.

Policy pressure

The demand backdrop has hardened. Federal purchase incentives — the New Clean Vehicle Credit, the Previously-owned Clean Vehicle Credit and the Qualified Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit — all expired in September 2025. President Donald Trump's executive order "Unleashing American Energy" vowed to "eliminate the electric vehicle mandate."

US EV manufacturers also face Chinese brand competition, tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty affecting supply chains and production planning. GM is not alone in the retrenchment: Ford, Stellantis and Porsche have all recorded billions in EV-related write-downs.

What to watch: whether Factory ZERO resumes on 14 April 2026 as scheduled, whether GM extends the Flint six-day schedule beyond summer, and how the projected US$1bn–US$1.5bn improvement in EV losses tracks against actual volumes through the rest of 2026.