The MV-1: a vehicle built for wheelchair passengers

2008 – 2016

The contract: The Commercial Assembly Plant's first post-Hummer product came from a startup. The Vehicle Production Group — founded in 2006 in Miami, Florida; AM General's 2008 contract announcement located it in Troy, Michigan, and both placements are printed as they stand — engaged AM General in 2008 to build its purpose-designed accessible vehicle, developed as the Standard Taxi and produced as the MV-1: on AM General's own later description, the only American-built vehicle designed from the ground up for wheelchair passengers, with a built-in access ramp and room for a passenger in a wheelchair to ride beside the driver.

The loan and the line: In March 2011 the Department of Energy awarded VPG a $50 million clean-energy loan. Production began at the Commercial Assembly Plant in 2011; the first vehicle came off the Mishawaka line on 21 September 2011. About 2,500 vehicles had been produced by February 2013, on a company profile's figure, when the chapter turned: VPG's finances fell below the loan agreement's minimum condition, production halted in February 2013, and VPG laid off all its employees and closed in May 2013.

AM General buys its own customer's loan: On 5 September 2013 AM General announced its agreement with the Department of Energy to purchase the government's secured loan — for $3 million against the $50 million facility — and to acquire VPG's assets, forming a wholly owned subsidiary, Mobility Ventures LLC, to own and sell the MV-1. The announcement described the plant it already owned as "a 675,000 square-foot Commercial Assembly Plant… fully tooled for the MV-1." Production restarted at Mishawaka on 11 March 2014, at a rate the record carries as about 2,000 vehicles a year. The reference works carry MV-1 production as 2011–2016. The chapter's shape is the plant's post-GM pattern in miniature: a real vehicle, really built in Mishawaka, at volumes two orders of magnitude below the building's H2 years.

Sources:

1. AM General press releases, 2008 and 5 September 2013 — the VPG build contract, the DOE loan purchase for $3 million, the Mobility Ventures formation, the plant description.
2. Department of Energy loan record — the $50 million award of March 2011 and the February 2013 covenant halt.
3. South Bend record and reference works — the 21 September 2011 first vehicle, the 11 March 2014 restart at about 2,000 a year, production carried as 2011–2016; Dealroom company profile — about 2,500 produced by February 2013.