Story at a glance:
- General Motors electrical engineering employees enrolled in its Automotive Manufacturing Electric College.
- Retooling and reeducating current employees is expensive, but GM believes the sooner its employees are knowledgeable about EV technology, the better troubleshooting will be.
- Classes were supposed to start in 2020, but COVID-19 caused a delay.
General Motors (GM) wants to train its employees to be prepared for the company’s ambitious launch of 30 new electric vehicles (EV) by 2025.
To reach its environmental agenda called the Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion by 2035, GM’s Automotive Manufacturing Electric College (AMEC) is the initiative to improve the company’s awareness and quality of handling EV engineering, the Detroit Free Press reported.
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Under AMEC, new hires and veteran workers will be required to be full-time students and attend courses with the intention of graduating by the end of the year.
Global Manufacturing Electrical Integration and Training lead Jason Garrison is the principal architect behind the AMEC, and his role is to set the standards for electrical manufacturing at GM.
Classes, which were slated to start in 2020, were postponed due to COVID-19 and started in January 2021.
Of course, there is risk of focusing on retooling and reeducating current employees. However, GM believes it is making a great decision in the long run.
“It’s a significant cost to pay to staff it, hire people and pay them their full salary for a year without getting any production out of them,” Garrison told the Free Press. “But we feel if we train people, then in the long haul they will stay with GM and our warranty costs on electrical repairs will go down.”
Without disclosing the budget, it is worth noting that the courses themselves will cost GM millions of dollars, GM Authority reported.
The AMEC will also teach students how to work with complex electrical systems for internal combustion engines.
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