General Motors’ CAMI Assembly Plant is set to restart production of the Chevrolet BrightDrop in November, according to a report by Automotive News. The union representing employees at General Motors’ CAMI Assembly Plant has revealed that production of the Chevrolet BrightDrop will resume in November, with a reduced workforce of under 400 hourly employees and without any on-site battery manufacturing.
Mike Van Boekel, chairperson of Unifor Local 88 at the CAMI plant, stated that operations will be limited to a single shift and will proceed at a reduced line speed, leading to over 600 job cuts. He also mentioned that the battery module and pack facility GM introduced at CAMI in 2024 will remain inactive until market demand improves.
The plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, has been inactive since the spring. In April, GM informed Unifor that production of the all-electric BrightDrop vans, the plant’s only product, would resume in October. At that time, GM also revealed plans to scale back the shifts from two to one, though details about the restart process and the extent of workforce reductions remained uncertain.
GM Canada has confirmed that the CAMI plant will resume production of BrightDrop vans, but not battery modules. According to Boekel, it’s unclear how much battery inventory remains on-site. Once that supply is depleted, the plant will rely on battery imports from the United States. Before the plant shut down in the spring, around 200 workers were involved in assembling battery modules and packs. Boekel added that the decision to shift this production to the U.S. is directly related to tariff issues.
The anticipated reduction in shifts marks yet another setback for CAMI’s workforce, which had around 1,500 hourly employees before the plant was retooled in 2022. Workers have experienced extended periods of downtime throughout 2023, 2024, and 2025 due to sluggish demand for the BrightDrop vans. After a modest wave of layoffs earlier this spring, the number of hourly staff had already dropped to roughly 1,200.
With fewer than 400 positions available as the plant prepares to restart, around 75 employees have opted for retirement packages, and more than half of the remaining workforce will be laid off.
Despite recent developments, Boekel noted that GM remains hopeful about the future of both the CAMI plant and the BrightDrop brand. While commercial van sales had previously lagged, they’ve seen a notable upswing in 2025. In the first six months of the year, GM sold more than 2,000 BrightDrop vans across Canada and the U.S., more than twice the number sold during the same period last year.
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