Oshawa loses out: next Silverado heads south of the border

© chevrolet.com

General Motors may leave its Canadian Oshawa Assembly plant without the next-generation Chevrolet Silverado 1500. As Carscoops reports, the recently unveiled 2027 Silverado 1500 is not on the production schedule for the Ontario facility. A shutdown is not on the table, however: the plant remains part of GM’s full-size pickup production program.

The scenario is tied to a broader reshuffle of North American manufacturing. GM is preparing its Orion Assembly plant in Michigan to build gasoline full-size pickups and SUVs, even though the site had previously been earmarked for electric vehicle production. Against that backdrop, shifting some volume to the US makes sense: it helps the automaker reduce tariff and logistics risk around Canadian assembly.

For Oshawa, this is a sensitive issue. The plant has already faced reduced utilization and a move from three shifts to two. Earlier, the Unifor union reported that after the United States imposed 25-percent tariffs on Canadian-built vehicles, GM ramped up Silverado output in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and then announced the elimination of the third shift in Oshawa. The union criticized the move, linking it to a weakening of GM’s manufacturing footprint in Canada.

Still, the Canadian site should not be written off. GM has previously announced investments in Canada, including 343 million Canadian dollars in Oshawa Assembly to support production of next-generation pickups. The St. Catharines plant is also slated to take part in producing new V8 engines for GM’s full-size pickups and SUVs.