General Motors is laying off more than 1,700 employees at its Michigan, Ohio, locations, citing electric vehicle challenges

GM Nearly 1,700 workers were laid off at manufacturing sites in Michigan and Ohio on Wednesday, due to a slowdown in the electric vehicle market.

The company confirmed the presence About 1,200 workers were laid off at an electric vehicle plant in Detroit and 550 layoffs at an Ultium Cells battery cell plant in Ohio, in addition to 850 temporary layoffs at that site in Ohio. The company also said it would temporarily lay off 700 employees at its Ultium Cells plant in Tennessee.

“In response to slowing electric vehicle adoption in the near term and the evolving regulatory environment, GM is working to realign electric vehicle capacity,” the company said in a statement. “Despite these changes, GM remains committed to its U.S. manufacturing footprint, and we believe our investments and dedication to lean operations will make GM more agile and able to lead through change.”

GM also said that battery cell production at its facilities in Ohio and Tennessee will be temporarily halted starting in January. It expects to resume operations at both battery cell sites by mid-2026 and will use the pause to upgrade its facilities.

Wednesday’s layoffs come after the company announced last week that it would cut more than 200 paid employees, most of them engineers, at its global technology campus in metro Detroit, as part of restructuring efforts.

After September, federal incentives of up to $7,500 for electric vehicle purchases were discontinued, leaving consumers scrambling to use the feature before it expired. Although EV sales rose to record levels for many automakers in the third quarter, that demand is expected to decline after the pause.

GM previously reported electric vehicle sales more than doubled during the third quarter compared to the previous year, a trend other automakers are echoing. ford motor Hyundai also witnessed.

“We still believe there’s a strong future for electric vehicles, and we have a great portfolio to be competitive, but we have some structural changes that we need to make to make sure we get the cost of producing those vehicles down,” CFO Paul Jacobson told CNBC’s Phil LeBeau during Squawk Box last week.

However, GM’s third-quarter results last week included a $1.6 billion impact from not fully implementing its electric vehicle plans as expected, suggesting it was undergoing a reassessment of its electric vehicle capacity and manufacturing operations.

The Detroit News first reported the layoffs.