Honda Motor Co. announced Friday it was planning to build a comprehensive $15 billion electric vehicle (EV) value chain in Canada.
The company said it has begun evaluating the requirements to build an innovative and environmentally responsible plant and a stand-alone Honda EV battery plant in Alliston, Ontario. The company said the value chain will strengthen the EV supply system with an eye toward increasing future EV demand in North America. The value chain will include investment by joint venture partners, and will support Honda’s global initiative to make BEVs and FCEVs represent 100 percent of vehicle sales by 2040 by investing in the electric vehicle value chain.
“Honda is making progress in our global initiatives toward the realization of our 2050 carbon neutrality goal,” Toshihiro Mibe, Global CEO of Honda, said. “In North America, following the initiative to establish our EV production system capability in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions toward the establishment of a comprehensive EV value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario. We will strengthen our EV supply system and capability with an eye toward a future increase in EV demand in North America.”
The proposed value chain will also include a cathode active material and precursor processing plant, through a joint venture partnership with POSCO Future M Co., Ltd. and a separator plant through a joint venture partnership with Asahi Kasei Corporation.
The company said that it expects that electric vehicle production will begin in 2028, and that once fully operational, the plant will have a production capacity of 240,000 EVs per year. The EV battery plant will have a capacity of 36 gigawatt hours per year. The plant expects to employ 4,200 associates at its two existing manufacturing facilities in Ontario, and will add a minimum of 1,000 new associates for the EV and EV battery manufacturing facilities. The company also projected it will create a significant number of spinoff jobs across all sites, including the construction sector.