Ford has introduced a $1.3 billion (1.8 billion Canadian {dollars}) funding into the Oakville Meeting Advanced in Ontario to rework it right into a Canadian hub of electrical car manufacturing.
The plant will construct electrical autos and assemble battery packs in a brand new campus that will likely be renamed Oakville Electrical Car Advanced. Ford says it’s going to repurpose present buildings right into a state-of-the-art facility that can leverage Oakville’s skilled workforce.
The retooling and transformation of the positioning right into a high-volume manufacturing hub for North American EVs will start within the second quarter of 2024, with manufacturing of next-generation electrical autos to begin in 2025.
Ford didn’t provide clues relating to the EV fashions it plans to make in Oakville, however the manufacturing unit’s 3,000 staff at present construct the Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus mid-size SUVs.
Ford notes that it’s the full-line automaker dedicated to producing passenger EVs in Canada for the North American market. We’re undecided that is correct since Stellantis additionally confirmed final 12 months that it’s going to produce passenger EVs based mostly on the STLA Giant platform in Windsor, Ontario.
“Canada and the Oakville complex will play a vital role in our Ford+ transformation. It will be a modern, super-efficient, vertically integrated site for battery and vehicle assembly. I’m most excited for the world to see the incredible next-generation electric and fully digitally connected vehicles produced in Oakville.”
Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO
The present 487-acre Oakville web site contains three physique retailers, one paint constructing, and one meeting constructing. Along with retooling them and consolidating the three physique retailers into one, Ford can even add a brand new 407,000 square-foot on-site battery plant to the reworked campus.
The battery web site will make the most of cells and arrays from BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky. Employees at Oakville will take these elements and assemble battery packs that can then be put in in autos assembled on-site.
The automaker says it’s taking a various strategic method to reworking its industrial system to increase EV manufacturing by constructing new greenfield websites – similar to BlueOval Metropolis in Tennessee – and reworking present manufacturing websites like in Oakville and Cologne, Germany.
Ford’s announcement relating to Oakville is the most recent in a line of large manufacturing investments in North America. These embrace the BlueOval Metropolis complicated in West Tennessee, two battery crops in Kentucky inbuilt collaboration with SK On, and a lithium iron phosphate battery plant in Michigan with tech licensed from CATL.
As well as, Ford can be modernizing its car meeting campus in Cologne, Germany, remodeling it into the Ford Cologne Electrification Heart, which can construct the electrical Explorer SUV for Europe.
Lastly, Ford, LG Power Answer and Koç Holding have signed an MoU to construct one of many largest business electrical car battery cell manufacturing services within the European area close to Ankara, Turkey. All in all, Ford will make investments $50 billion globally in electrical autos by 2026.
