GM announced plans to invest $245 million into its highly automated plant in Orion Township, Michigan.

This story has been updated with new information.

General Motors’ latest plant investment of $245 million will net 300 new jobs and set the Orion, Michigan, plant on a path for a completely new project, officials said today.

The new program joins the Bolt and those new workers will be brought on sometime after the tooling is installed next year to begin production of the new EV.

“Orion Assembly is a breeding ground for manufacturing innovation,” said GM North America Vice President of Manufacturing and Labor Relations Cathy Clegg. “It serves as a model for how to engage the entire workforce at all levels to achieve success. The plant is up to the challenge of building this brand-new product, something it’s never seen before.”

The choice of Orion as the site for this new program, which is expected to begin producing a vehicle of some sort in the next three years, isn’t all that surprising. Orion has a unique culture that was developed in concert with the UAW when the plant re-opened five years ago. There is an emphasis on flexibility and employee input. Pouring more than $3 billion into plants is seen by some as a way to make negotiations between the automaker and the UAW go smoother.

The Chevy Bolt will join the Chevy Sonic and Buick Verano as the third vehicle built at the Orion plant. Photo by Len Katz.

Clegg told reporters after the announcement that the Orion plant is also a model of the ongoing collaboration between GM and the UAW. Both the company and the union have the same goals and objectives, said Clegg, who will be responsible for GM’s end of the contract negotiations with the UAW the summer.

The negotiations will begin officially July 13 and Clegg said while the negotiations will certainly be complicated. She expects the two side will be able to work through over problem areas such as the union’s oft stated-desire to bridge the gap between first- and second-tier workers.

(GM hires bankers to fortify “no merger” message. For more, Click Here.)

“Orion is an example of what we can achieve when we work together,” said UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada, who leads the union’s GM Department. “Only through innovative problem solving were we going to see this plant succeed, and this new investment is proof of that. UAW-GM continues to show the world that when you involve both workers and management in the process, workers win, management wins and our communities win.”

Estrada was optimistic about the upcoming talks, saying she expected GM and the UAW to reach agreement without any strike. “If there is a strike, both of us will have failed,” she said. The current pact negotiated in 2011 when the union was not allowed to strike expires Sept 15.

Today’s announcement is a part of the $5.4 billion GM has announced it will invest in U.S. manufacturing over the next three years. Approximately $3.1 billion of the $5.4 billion has been identified, including $1 billion at the company’s technical center in Warren, Michigan, a suburb north of Detroit. That leaves $2.3 billion to be announced by year-end.

(Click Here for details about GM returning to the medium-duty truck market.)

This influx of cash follows the announcement the company would invest $160 million in the plant to build the Chevy Bolt, the company’s 200-miles-on-a-charge EV, which expected to go on sale in late 2016 or early 2017.

The plant has been a revival story for the automaker. For many years, it was considered a crown jewel of manufacturing for GM, but it built primarily large-bodied, rear-drive vehicles – at one time it built five different vehicles at one time.

(To see more about the NTSB trying to make collision avoidance standard, Click Here.)

As those vehicles fell out of favor and auto sales hit their nadir, the plant was shuttered in 2009 as part of the company’s bankruptcy. However, GM reopened it in 2010 and pumped $962 million into it to build the Chevy Sonic and Buick Verano.

Joseph Szczeny contributed to this report.