What just happened? General Motors on Monday moved one step closer to making its vision of an all-electric future a reality with the announcement of a substantial investment at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant.

The automaker is setting aside $2.2 billion to convert the facility into its first dedicated entirely to building electric vehicles. At present, the Detroit-Hamtramck plant employs around 900 people who build the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac CT6. It'll go idle at the end of February as the renovations get under way.

Once fully operational, the investment will create more than 2,200 US manufacturing jobs.

The company's first all-electric pickup truck is slated to enter production in late 2021. It'll be followed by the Cruise Origin, the electric shuttle bus we profiled on TechSpot last week.

An additional $800 million will be used for supplier tooling and other projects related to the electric trucks, GM said.

GM isn't the only automaker working on electrified pickups. Tesla unveiled its ambitiously designed Cybertruck late last year and Rivian is working on the R1T, a more conventional pickup that'll be able to turn on a dime thanks to a feature quite literally called tank turn.

GM was even linked to rumors that it, along with Amazon, was interested in investing in Rivian roughly a year ago although it is unclear if a potential investment from either company ever panned out.