Ford to invest C$1.8 Billion in Oakville, Ontario Complex for high-volume EV manufacturing.

Ford Motor Company has announced plans to invest C$1.8 billion to transform its Oakville Assembly Complex in Canada into a high-volume hub for electric vehicle manufacturing. The facility will be renamed the Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex and will begin retooling and modernizing in Q2 of 2024 to prepare for the production of next-generation EVs.

This marks a significant milestone for the Canadian auto industry, as it is the first time a full-line automaker has announced plans to produce passenger EVs in Canada for the North American market. The investment also allows Ford to repurpose and transform existing buildings into a state-of-the-art facility that leverages Ford of Canada’s skilled and experienced workforce.

Ford’s investment is part of its wider strategic approach to expand EV production, which includes building new greenfield sites and transforming existing manufacturing sites. Along with Oakville, Ford is also transforming its Cologne, Germany facility to accommodate EV production.

The current Oakville site spans 487 acres and includes three body shops, one paint building, and one assembly building. The transformed campus will feature a new 407,000 square-foot on-site battery plant that will utilize cells and arrays from BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky. Oakville workers will take these components and assemble battery packs that will then be installed in vehicles assembled on-site.

This investment is a significant step towards achieving Ford’s goal of making EVs more accessible to millions of customers. The company aims to introduce 40 electrified vehicles globally by 2022, and it plans to invest $22 billion in electrification through 2025.

In addition to the Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex upgrades, Ford also has announced:

• It is creating an all-new EV manufacturing ecosystem in West Tennessee – called BlueOval City – the home of a battery plant and the future home of Ford’s next-generation EV pickup. Together with two battery plants in Kentucky, which are part of a joint venture with SK On, these sites will create 11,000 new U.S. jobs and expected to begin production in 2025.
• Through a wholly owned subsidiary, Ford is building a lithium iron phosphate battery plant in Marshall, Mich. Production is slated to begin in 2026, with 2,500 employees. Ford is the first automaker to commit to build both lithium iron phosphate and nickel cobalt manganese batteries in the U.S., helping America’s No. 2 EV company in 2022 diversify its U.S. supply chain.
• It is modernizing its vehicle assembly campus in Cologne, Germany, transforming it to become the Ford Cologne Electrification Center – the company’s first EV center of excellence in Europe. This site will be the production home of the electric Ford Explorer for European customers; production begins later this year.
• Ford, LG Energy Solution and Koç Holding have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to build one of the largest commercial electric vehicle battery cell production facilities in the European region. The project is on track to break ground near Ankara, Turkey, later this year, with production to start in 2026.
• Ford this year is expanding production of the F-150 Lightning at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn and the Mustang Mach-E at its Cuautitlan facility on Mexico.

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