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GM first to build Electric Motors domestically?

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Such SPIN!

Until now, electric motors and drive units – the heart and soul of electric vehicles – have been mostly imports.
Yeah. "Mostly" imports, if you count the millions of made in China electric motors in blenders, electric razors, toys, garage doors, etc. the Leaf and Tesla motors are a tiny fraction.

General Motors today commemorated becoming the first U.S.-based automaker to manufacture these key parts in America for the new Chevrolet Spark EV at its Baltimore Operations plant in White Marsh, Md.
OK. So they are the first automaker to make electric motors for their own Spark EV in their own Baltimore plant.

Jeez!
 
I find it weird that somebody on a Tesla forum would write that. If it's for sale anyone can buy it from a California dealer.

But then you have to pick it up in California, pay California taxes, ship it back home, pay Georgia taxes and hope nothing goes wrong with the firs EV GM makes in almost 20 years.

I have a Tesla Service Center within 10 miles of my house.
 
You got to be kidding. The Nissan Leaf builds its motors in Tennessee and Tesla is California. So I guess these states are not part of the USA.

First domestic to build motors and drive units in the USA. Tesla must not be building them here. Or maybe GM's dangling a carrot to Tesla to generate a mutually-promotional war of words. Interesting they're building the motors here since the Spark will be assembled in Korea.

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But then you have to pick it up in California, pay California taxes, ship it back home, and hope nothing goes wrong with the firs EV GM makes in almost 20 years.

I have a Tesla Service Center within 10 miles of my house.

You ship it so you don't pay CA's sales tax. Shouldn't cost any more than $1k. Plenty of Volt and PiP owners have had their cars shipped. If I were buying a new car right now it'd be a Volt and I certainly wouldn't be buying it from a Maine dealer since they couldn't get anywhere near the volume pricing the top sellers offer.

They have to honor the warranty wherever you live. Otherwise you'd be screwed if you move. If anything serious goes wrong with the car GM would dispatch a tech to deal with it. But, given the nature of cars, it doesn't really matter since it's following instructions to replace parts.
 
InsideEVs is like an executive summary site recently just condensing other news.
Here's the original media gm announcement. I think props to GM for is in order for their commitment to the Spark EV a lot more than most are giving them credit for. Certainly they have to be cautious and limit the states given the LEAF sales of the like comparison product in the past two years. They have stockholders after all.

I'm a GM fan because my first GM product was a 2011 Volt but I don't know why Tesla wasn't mentioned. I think Nissan deserves some props for building their plant here too and actually making parts here (ie motor) vs it being only an assembly plant.
http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/.../news/us/en/2013/Apr/0416-spark-electric.html
 
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I thought the below was a cool aspect of all this.

Link: GM making electric motors for Chevy Spark EV in Baltimore
GM developed some expertise in electric motor manufacturing with a pilot factory in Wixom, Mich. Before launching manufacturing at the Baltimore plant, workers completed training on the operation of the machines used to configure and manufacture the electric motor and drive units.

The Baltimore plant is GM's exclusive manufacturer of A1000 transmissions for heavy duty pickup trucks and electric motors and drivetrains for the Chevrolet Spark EV. This factory has been zero-landfill since 2007, recycling 100% of its waste. It also has a 1.2 MW roof mounted solar array, that was installed in May 2011.

A new facility was built on the grounds of the Baltimore plant was built explicitly for electric motor manufacturing. This business was formerly operated in Mexico, and has been brought back to the U.S.
 
In a recent interview Elon said they brought motor designs to a manufacture ans was told it could not be built. So Tesla went back and figured out out it could be built. They were then told there was not machine that could do the work. So Tesla designed the machine and at that point decided to just build the motors themselves.