Honda is building Canada’s first comprehensive electric vehicle supply chain
- Honda is making its largest investment ever in Canada’s automotive industry.
- Honda will spend $11 billion to build a comprehensive electric vehicle supply chain in the province of Ontario.
- The automaker plans to start building electric vehicles at the factory in 2028.
Honda is heading north of the border for the second phase of its North American electric vehicle expansion. The Japanese automaker said Thursday it will spend 15 billion Canadian dollars (about $11 billion at current exchange rates) to produce electric vehicles in the province of Ontario.
Honda will build an electric vehicle factory and a standalone battery plant near its existing manufacturing facility in Alliston, Ontario, about 62 miles (100 km) north of Toronto. The latter plant will have an annual capacity of 36 GWh and the assembly plant will be able to produce 240,000 electric vehicles per year from 2028.
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The company also plans to build a cathode active material and precursor processing plant and a separator plant nearby. These facilities will be provided with the help of joint venture partners POSCO Future M Co., Ltd. and Asahi Kasei built. Honda is still negotiating with its partners and will announce further details about these facilities, such as their locations, in the next six months.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Honda’s move the “largest auto investment in Canadian history,” the CBC reports. The federal government said the deal will result in “Canada’s first comprehensive electric vehicle supply chain.”
Honda’s Canadian EV plants will be supported by its Ohio EV Hub, which will begin producing electric vehicles in 2025. There, the automaker invested $700 million to retool its existing plant and expects to spend another $4.4 billion to build a battery plant nearby.
Both investments are part of Honda’s long-term plans. The automaker aims for electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles to make up 100 percent of its sales by 2040. He wants to be CO2 neutral in all of his business activities by 2050.
“Following the initiative to build our electric vehicle manufacturing capabilities in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions to establish a comprehensive electric vehicle value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario,” said Toshihiro Mibe. Honda’s CEO. “We will strengthen our EV supply system and capabilities in anticipation of future increases in EV demand in North America.”
