Ford Motor Co. provides details on plans to spend $1.8B in Oakville to produce EVs
Ford Motor Co. has revealed some particulars of its plan to spend $1.8 billion on its Oakville Assembly Complex to show it into an electrical automobile manufacturing hub.
The automaker stated Tuesday that it’ll begin retooling the Ontario complicated within the second quarter of 2024 and being producing electrical automobiles in 2025.
Ford stated the transformation of the Oakville web site, to be renamed the Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex, will embody a brand new 407,000 square-foot battery plant the place elements produced at its U.S. operations will likely be assembled into battery packs.
General Motors is already producing electrical supply vans in Canada, however Ford says that is the primary time a full-line automaker has introduced plans to provide passenger EVs in Canada for the North American market.
“Canada and the Oakville complex will play a vital role in our Ford+ transformation,” stated chief government Jim Farley in a press release.
Ford did not specify within the launch which fashions it deliberate to construct on the complicated, which at the moment produces the Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus.
The spending plans have been first introduced in 2020 as a part of union negotiations with the corporate, with staff looking for long-term manufacturing commitments and the Detroit Three automakers finally agreeing to put money into Canadian operations in live performance with spending agreements with the Ontario and federal governments.
The two governments agreed to offer $295 million every in funding to safe the Ford funding.
“The partnership between Ford and Canada helps to position us as a global leader in the EV supply chain for decades to come,” stated Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne in Ford’s news launch.
The Ford spending dedication is only one of many seen in Canada in recent times, most not too long ago with Volkswagen asserting in March it might construct its first battery cell plant exterior of Europe at a plant in St. Thomas, Ont. The federal authorities has not but stated how a lot cash it dedicated to safe the Volkswagen funding.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed April 11, 2023.
