GM Announces $370 Million Investment for New Small Engine Manufacturing in North America

[thegriffon]

Flint, MI — General Motors Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner today announced that the company will invest $370 million in the U.S. to build a new manufacturing plant for its global 4-cylinder engines in Flint, Mich. The plant will begin production in the U.S. in 2010, and will be the exclusive manufacturing facility in North America to produce the Chevrolet Volt's range extending engine.

The investment in Flint is one of several that have been announced at U.S. plants in the past 10 years, adding up to over a $9 billion total investment in Michigan and more than $42 billion in the United States. …

Full releases, photos and video at AutoReport

Family 0 comes to America.

Surprised this didn't get posted days ago. Video has more views of the Cruze, 2nd release more engine details (Volt is NA 1.4, Cruze the same 1.4 Turbo as the Zafira).

[dwightlooi]

One thing of note: None of the GM releases indicate that the "Family Zero" engines -- including the 1.4 liter Turbo -- features direct injection. Some magazines and various forum posters have made that assumption, but I haven't seen anything official on it yet.

[thegriffon]

I don't think we'll see direct injection until the higher-output Saab versions appear, and for now the PFI 1.6 Turbo fills that power niche. Now that there are more versions of the 2.0 Turbo it will filter down, first to the 1.6 and then the 1.4, but GM has not announced a strict timetable, just that DI will become more widespread.