Ford Motor Company is planning a major C$1.8 billion investment in its Oakville Assembly Complex in Ontario, Canada, to convert it into a high-volume hub for manufacturing electric vehicles (EVs). This move is part of Ford's strategy to produce 2 million EVs annually worldwide by the end of 2026.
The Oakville campus will be renamed the Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex and is set to begin retooling and modernization in the second quarter of 2024, with the aim of commencing production of next-generation EVs starting in 2025. This is a significant milestone as Ford becomes the first full-line automaker to commit to producing passenger EVs in Canada for the North American market.
The company's President and CEO, Jim Farley, expressed enthusiasm for the transformation, emphasizing that Oakville will become a cutting-edge, highly efficient facility for battery and vehicle assembly. By leveraging the skilled workforce in Oakville, Ford aims to optimize existing buildings and turn them into state-of-the-art facilities for EV production. This aligns with Ford's broader strategy of transforming industrial systems and increasing EV production capabilities globally, both by creating new sites and converting existing ones, such as in Oakville and Cologne, Germany.
The current 487-acre Oakville site will include a new 407,000 square-foot on-site battery plant, using cells and arrays from the BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky. Oakville workers will assemble these battery packs on-site for installation in the EVs produced there.
In addition to the Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex, Ford has other EV-related projects in the pipeline, such as creating an EV manufacturing ecosystem in West Tennessee, building a lithium iron phosphate battery plant in Michigan, modernizing its vehicle assembly campus in Cologne, Germany, and partnering with LG Energy Solution and Koç Holding to build a significant commercial EV battery cell production facility near Ankara, Turkey.
The investment in Oakville is expected to secure thousands of well-paying jobs for Canadian autoworkers and enhance the competitiveness of Canada's auto sector in the EV market. The move is seen as crucial for positioning Canada as a global leader in the EV supply chain for years to come.
Ford's decision to transform the Oakville plant has received positive feedback from Canadian government officials and industry partners, who view it as a crucial step towards building a strong electric vehicle supply chain in Ontario and contributing to the province's economic growth and future success.
Source: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/ca/en/news/2023/04/11/ford_s-oakville--ontario--complex-prepares-to-build-next-gen-evs.html
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