Volkswagen Group will spend $7 billion on a new battery cell manufacturing plant in St. Thomas, Ont., notching a new high-water mark for Canadian automotive investment.
The formal announcement April 21 came a month after the German automaker, along with its in-house battery subsidiary PowerCo, named the city midway between Toronto and Windsor as the location for its first North American cell plant.
Government and company officials were on-hand for the event in St. Thomas, not far from the 1,500-acre (600-hectare) development site at the northwest end of the city that will house the 370-acre (149-hectare) plant. The facility is Volkswagen’s largest to date, the Ontario government said.
The plant will supply batteries to Volkswagen’s North American EV assembly facilities, including an existing site in Chattanooga, Tenn., and the recently announced Scout Motors plant in Blythewood, S.C.
The plant is expected to create 3,000 direct jobs and up to 30,000 indirect jobs, according to the province.
1 MILLION BATTERIES PER YEAR
“Once complete, the plant will produce batteries for up to one million electric vehicles per year, bolstering Canada’s domestic battery manufacturing capacity to meet the demand for electric vehicles now and into the future,” the province said.
The new EV cell plant is the second such facility planned for Ontario. A joint venture between Stellantis and LG Energy Solution are currently building a $5 billion battery plant in Windsor, scheduled to open in 2024.
Volkswagen, the world’s second-largest automaker by volume, also gains the distinction of becoming the sixth major car company to put down significant manufacturing roots in Ontario. The investment has been touted as the most significant for the country’s auto industry since Toyota and Honda built plants in the province in the 1980s.
The site in St. Thomas beat out dozens of other prospective locations across North America to land the new plant, but the win did not come cheap.
The federal and provincial governments each contributed $500 million toward the capital costs of the plant, while Ottawa negotiated a separate contract to match production incentives offered under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. Those subsidies are expected to be worth between $8 and $13 billion over 10 years, depending on plant output.
The large amount of public funding to secure the site was necessary to put Canada’s auto sector on a level playing field with incentives offered in United States, said federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development François-Philippe Champagne a day before the St. Thomas event.
The cell plant will bring thousands of direct and spin-off jobs to Ontario, Champagne said, making it far more valuable than the funds used to bring it to St. Thomas. Ottawa expects economic activity generated by the plant will recoup the investment in its first five years in operation.
The new facility is expected to produce its first battery cell in 2027. Construction is planned for 2024.
This story will be updated.
"auto" - Google News
April 21, 2023 at 09:25PM
https://ift.tt/Mr4Guwn
VW's $7-billion battery plant to be biggest auto investment in Canadian history - Automotive News Canada
"auto" - Google News
https://ift.tt/na0BG3M
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment