The Fort Wayne plant will be closed the weeks of April 4 and 11. It has been running on three shifts per day making Chevrolet Silverados and GMC Sierra light duty pickups.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra said the automaker learned valuable lessons last year when it converted an Indiana factory to boost emergency production of ventilators to treat severely ill COVID-19 patients.

The Bedford Casting Operations, south of Bloomington, will be upgraded to produce components for the engine and transmission for the Chevrolet Silverado EV that is set to debut next year.

General Motors announced Thursday that it would pause production at eight North American plants during the next two weeks, including its plant in Fort Wayne that makes the company's top-selling Chevrolet Silverado pickup.

The Detroit automaker made the strong profit despite a global shortage of computer chips that have forced it and other companies to temporarily close factories. Its plant in Fort Wayne is among three set to temporarily close next week due to the chip shortage.

The city of Muncie is buying the former GM factory property on the city's southside with hopes of turning it into a solar panel farm to generate power.

GM says the seat belt brackets may not have been secured to the frame, so the belts may not hold people in a crash.

Ventec, in a partnership with General Motors, began operations in the GM Components Holdings plant in April, hiring local employees to make 30,000 ventilators.

The Department of Health and Human Services contracted with General Motors to build the ventilators at a converted auto electronics plant in Kokomo at a cost of $489.4 million.

The Bolt may be GM's first EV in a generation, but it foreshadows what's to come. Up next are Chevy and Buick crossovers based on the Bolt's architecture.