Ford Motor Company said on Wednesday that it would build its first autonomous vehicles at a $50 million production center in Michigan as part of an earlier pledge to invest $900 million in manufacturing operations in the state.

Production of the self-driving vehicles is expected to start in 2021, with hybrid vehicles being shipped in to be fitted with driverless technology, the carmaker said. Ford said the work would be done in the Detroit area but did not specify where. Kelli Felker, a spokeswoman for the company, said the hybrids would not be an existing model.

In addition to the autonomous vehicle production center, Ford said it planned to expand its production capacity at an existing plant in Flat Rock, Mich., where it will continue to make its Mustang car. The company said it intended to invest more than $850 million in the Flat Rock factory and start production on new electric vehicle models there by 2023.

The effort will create 900 new jobs in the next few years, the vast majority of them at the Flat Rock plant, the company said.