General Motors confirmed Tuesday morning that its Spring Hill, Tennessee, plant, which once served as the launch point for Saturn, will build the upcoming Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV starting late next year. 

As GM clarified in August, the Lyriq might be available for sale in another market—like China—before the U.S., where it will go on sale later in the 2022 calendar year. 

Cadillac Lyriq concept

Gerald Johnson, GM’s executive VP for manufacturing, confirmed the investment of more than $2 billion in manufacturing, with most of that directed toward Spring Hill, which will become the company’s third facility producing EVs. 

The Spring Hill changes include “significant expansions of the paint and body shop” and represent “the next strategic step” in GM’s all-electric future. They complement a $2.2 billion revamp of GM's Detroit-Hamtramck plant announced Friday, making space for the GMC Hummer EV, Cruise Origin, and other future EVs.

To coordinate the change, GM will move its GMC Acadia crossover production back to its Lansing Delta Township (Michigan) plant, although Cadillac XT5 and XT6 production will remain in Spring Hill.

GM won't be the only automaker building electric vehicles in Tennessee. Volkswagen is investing in an $800 million expansion of its plant in Chattanooga to build the ID.4 electric crossover plus a second vehicle, starting in 2022; and it promises that the plant will be among the most advanced EV facilities in the industry.

Cadillac Lyriq concept

Spring Hill, which started operation in 1990 to much fanfare (see the video below), was originally the exclusive manufacturing plant for GM’s Saturn Corporation vehicles. Saturn represented a new way of designing and selling vehicles so they could compete with Japanese (and Korean) automakers. 

Now, it seems, GM will use Spring Hill once again as an important part of the company’s transition to an all-electric future—hopefully this time, for a future it can fully see through.