General Motors said it will close five production and parts plants in North America in response to what it said are changing customer preferences in the U.S. and market-related volume declines in cars. More than 6,700 jobs will be affected.

The automaker said that resources allocated to electric and autonomous vehicle programs will double in the next two years. It said it will expand the use of "virtual tools" to reduce development time and costs, integrate its vehicle and propulsion engineering teams and reduce the number of global product development campuses it operates.

GM said that it intends to prioritize future vehicle investments in battery-electric architectures. It said it expects that more than 75% of its global sales volume will come from five vehicle architectures by early next decade.

As part of its restructuring, GM said that it will shift production away from three vehicle assembly facilities in 2019 -- Oshawa Assembly in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly in Detroit and Lordstown Assembly in Warren, Ohio.

In addition, it will move production away from two propulsion plants in 2019: Baltimore Operations in White Marsh, Maryland; and Warren Transmission Operations in Warren, Michigan. The automaker said that it also plans to reduce salaried and salaried contract staff by 15%, including a 25% reduction in executive positions.

Outer framer at work at the Lordstown assembly plant. Source: GMGM said that it expects to record pre-tax charges of $3 to $3.8 billion related to these actions, including up to $1.8 billion of non-cash accelerated asset write-downs and pension charges, and up to $2 billion of employee-related and other cash-based expenses. Most of these charges will be taken in the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, with some additional costs incurred through 2019.

Plant Details

Production will cease in March 2019 of the Buick LaCrosse and Chevrolet Volt models at the Hamtramck plant. Work there will end in June 2019 on Cadillac CT6 and Chevrolet Impala models. Nearly 1,350 hourly and 150 contract workers will be affected.

Production will cease in March 2019 on the Chevrolet Cruze model at the Lordstown plant. More than 1,430 hourly and 180 contract workers will be affected.

Production will cease in the fourth quarter of 2019 on the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac XTS previous gen Silverado/Sierra (K2 Trucks) at the Oshawa plant. Around 2,600 hourly and 300 contract workers will be affected.

Production will cease in August 2019 at the Warren transmission plant on six-speed transmissions (for XTS, Impala, Malibu, Volt, Acadia) and the Global Front Wheel Electric (GFE) for Volt models. More than 260 hourly and 70 salaried workers will be affected.

Production of full-sized pickup truck transmissions will cease in August 2019 at the Maryland plant, and more than 250 hourly and 50 salaried workers will be affected.

GM also plans to close an assembly plant in Gunsan, Korea by the end of 2019, plus two as-yet unnamed plants outside of North America.