OREANDA-NEWS. January 29, 2013. General Motors will add a third shift at the Gravatai Industrial Complex, creating 1,450 new jobs at the assembly plant and another 1,000 at supplier plants located at the facility in the South of Brazil. Another 180 jobs will be created in the new powertrain plant in Joinville. Gravatai is home to the Chevrolet Celta and Onix small cars.

“The market success of the all-new Chevrolet Onix, launched last year in October, and the start of production of another new small sedan, to be launched in late February, led us to take the decision,” said Jaime Ardila, president GM South America. “We launched nine all-new Chevrolet models in the last 15 months in the Brazilian market and are poised for growth.”

In 2009, GM announced a USD 3 billion investment in Brazil. The plan was consolidated last year to develop and launch new Chevrolet products and update and add capacity to its plants.

As part of the plan, GM invested USD 1 billion in the Onix project to develop the new small car family and to expand capacity from 230,000 to 380,000 vehicles per year at the Gravatai plant.

An additional USD 172 million was invested to build a new engine and cylinder heads plant at Joinville in the State of Santa Catarina. Production recently began there. 

General Motors Co. (NYSE:GM, TSX: GMM) and its partners produce vehicles in 30 countries, and the company has leadership positions in the world's largest and fastest-growing automotive markets.  GM’s brands include Chevrolet and Cadillac, as well as Baojun, Buick, GMC, Holden, Isuzu, Jiefang, Opel, Vauxhall and Wuling.