It's official.  Chevrolet announces its all new compact car set to Cruze off the production lines at General Motors Lordstown plant in mid 2010.

"They called me late yesterday(Monday) and told me that the Chevy Cruze is coming to Lordstown, and I said, well what's the Chevy Cruze, you know, it's the next generation Cobalt.", says UAW Local 1714 President Dave Green.

The all new design is so new, there really aren't too many pictures available to show you.  Chevy plans to unveil the Cruze at the Paris Motor Show in October of this year.

"The first market that it will appear will be in Europe in next spring, spring of 2009.", says Nancy Libby with Chevrolet Communications.

Libby says United States production will start in Lordstown in June 2010.  The same time they plan to stop making the Cobalt.  "We'll be building the Chevy Cruze and the Cobalt for a short period of time together, but as the Cobalt gets phased out and ramped down, we'll be ramping up for the Cruze.", says Green.

GM is in the middle of its summer orientation program, welcoming new workers and transfers from other plants, and Green says the announcement of the Cruze shows the auto maker's commitment to the workers here at Lordstown, and gives them some real job security in the short term.  Green says, "We literally got people coming from all over the country here to Lordstown, the word is out that Lordstown's got it going on, and that we are going to be one of the keystone factories for General Motors."

Green expects demand for the Cruze to be as high, or even higher than the Cobalt.  He says the new design could get forty plus miles per gallon, which should keep the workers busy.