Chrysler will invest $1.8 billion to expand a Detroit assembly plant and has identified over $1 billion in non-earning assets for potential sale, company president Tom LaSorda said Wednesday. Speaking at a week-long industry meeting in Traverse City, Michigan, LaSorda said the investment will add space to the plant and keep more than 400 jobs in the state. The enhanced factory should be retooled by the end of 2009 and will start producing more fuel-efficient vehicles in early 2010, he said. LaSorda also said Chrysler, majority-owned for the past year by Cerberus Capital Management, has identified over $1 billion in “non-earning” assets that it intends to sell to generate cash. More than half of those assets have been sold, including a truck factory in Brazil, a design center in California, and several small properties near the company's headquarters outside of Detroit. Chrysler is the latest automaker to announce plans to retool factories to make more fuel-efficient vehicles as high gasoline prices hurt sales of light trucks and sport-utility vehicles (SUVs).
