Honda electric vehicle plans prepare local economy, environmental efforts

The future has arrived.

Honda’s $15 billion investment in electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing in Ontario, hailed as the largest manufacturing announcement in Canadian history with two plants in Alliston, will undoubtedly have a big and powerful impact on the local economy.

Since the development of the Honda Manufacturing of Canada automobile plant in Alliston in 1986, an industry of direct suppliers and suppliers to those suppliers has grown to support vehicle building efforts. It has seen continued growth as Honda’s only Canadian manufacturing facility, where 400,000 vehicles – Civics and CR-V – and 190,000 engines are now built annually by 4,200 employees.

Now, Honda is finalizing plans to develop four new factories from scratch in Ontario to create an entire electric vehicle supply chain that it expects to produce 240,000 vehicles annually by 2028.

With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and a host of federal and provincial ministers in attendance in Alliston, Honda announced on April 25 that it plans to build a new electric vehicle factory and a new autonomous electric vehicle battery factory in Alliston. along with two supporting factories elsewhere through partnerships.

The plans drive efforts to reduce society’s environmental footprint. Stan Mathewson of Sustainable Orillia points to Canada’s mandate to have 100% of new vehicles offered for sale be zero-emission vehicles by 2035. In addition, the Canadian Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act has set a goal of net zero emissions by in 2050. .

“It might encourage locals to adopt a little earlier,” said Mathewson, who hopes others in Simcoe County could soon be driving electric vehicles, as he has been since 2018. “It’s just revolutionary driving. Your cost savings, the fact that you have no emissions, is good news all around.

“It’s great to have Honda here,” he added.

Honda’s investment in Alliston goes a long way to not only meet these environmental goals, but also to future-proof the area’s manufacturing sector and build on it as the still-somewhat-nascent electric vehicle industry develops further into central Ontario.

Honda’s investments in Ontario, particularly with its presence in Alliston, add to employment, business and economic opportunities.

Steve Loftus points out that Ontario, particularly the southern part of the province, has one of the highest concentrations of auto manufacturing in the world. As a result, he says, all the infrastructure needed to move to the next step – which is electric vehicle production – is here.

“They all exist in Ontario … the people of Ontario don’t pat themselves on the back enough to say, ‘We’re at the forefront of this technology,'” Loftus said. “We are the top two or three concentrations or clusters in the world in automotive and EV battery production.”

Loftus is a founder of Innovative Automation, which started in Barrie in 1989. He has been the company’s CEO since 2021. Since then, the organization has grown into a group of companies.

The core business is custom car building, which has grown to employ 200 people in Barrie, supplying manufacturers including Tier 1 suppliers to Honda. MecSmart Systems in Newmarket is mainly involved in metal assembly and employs 30 people. Robotape is a proprietary product that employs 15 people in Barrie and Newmarket and also has global partners in Japan, Germany and England.

Loftus says he expects Honda to require a variety of technology, some of it newly developed, as the Alliston facility looks set to be in full electric vehicle production by 2028. There is also the daily need for material used in production , such as steel or aluminum. or the material needed for batteries.

“Will there be work for other people? Categorical. Because there will be someone to build this technology,” said Loftus, who sees potential opportunities for his Robotape business in developing Honda batteries as well as components as the Japanese automaker looks to source products, materials and machines.

Systems design engineer Sheri Williams, who is the industry X lead at Accenture Canada, where she focuses on digital manufacturing facility operations, says Canada has all the pieces to create a strong and stable electric vehicle supply chain, including exploitation of some of the components.

Accenture combines digital capabilities and deep expertise in engineering, operations and infrastructure to deliver artificial intelligence and automation solutions for the manufacturing industry.

“If you look at Canada as a geography, we can actually manage the entire supply chain from end to end and that’s why you see the investment,” she said. “If we can get the scale … I think the world will look at Ontario as a very safe place … to do this kind of sustainable energy work that’s going to be really important.

“There’s a lot of innovation that’s going to happen around it … (and) I think it has a huge opportunity to accelerate our economy,” Williams added.

And that further establishes the area as a major automotive manufacturing center, says Simcoe County Executive Basil Clarke. More than 10 percent of the county’s workforce works in the manufacturing industry, one-third of which is related to the automotive sector.

“As this is the largest investment by an international automaker in Canadian history, the impact on our region will be felt for decades to come,” said Clarke. “This is great news for Canada, Ontario, Simcoe County and the City of New Tecumseth.

“Through this investment, Honda is not only supporting additional jobs and growth in our region, but is also helping to build and support healthy and vibrant communities,” he added.

Honda’s “EV Value Chain” will also include the creation of a Cathode Active Materials and Precursors (CAM/pCAM) processing plant and a separation plant through two joint partnerships.

Korean battery materials company POSCO Future M Co., Ltd and Japanese chemical company Asahi Kasei Corporation will each have facilities in Ontario as part of the overall investment, according to Honda.

On Tuesday, three weeks after the Alliston announcement, Trudeau and Ford met again, this time in Port Colborne, to celebrate Asahi Kasei Corporation’s announcement of its plans to build a 1.6 EV battery separation plant there billions of dollars. Construction is scheduled for this year, with the goal of being commercially operational in 2027.

The joint venture between Honda and Asahi Kasei Corporation will focus on the production of battery separators for automotive batteries in Canada.

The separator is a critical component of lithium-ion batteries. It is a porous membrane that prevents electrical short circuits by blocking contact between the cathode and anode materials while allowing lithium ions to pass through.

In a joint press release about the second collaboration, POSCO Future M indicated a “core agreement” developed from a discussion on a comprehensive partnership to achieve carbon neutrality, which began in April 2023, when the two companies took consider the possibility of cooperating in the procurement of key battery materials.

Honda indicated earlier that many details of these plans are still being worked out and final agreements on these partnerships are expected to be formalized this year.

However, the exact location where the POSCO facility will be located has not yet been revealed.

“The purpose of this basic agreement is to consistently execute the respective electrification strategies by ensuring the steady procurement of high-performance batteries in the North American electrification market, where growth is expected in the medium to long term,” POSCO said in a statement.

The goal is to establish a joint venture that will supply cathode materials for EV batteries for the North American market.

As Honda puts all the EV manufacturing parts into place, it indicates that all systems are still working today.

Honda spokesman Ken Chui says production of gasoline and hybrid vehicles in Alliston will continue during the transition to electric vehicles, which is expected to begin in 2028.

“Nothing is changing on Line 1 and Line 2 in the near future – we will continue to build gasoline and hybrid cars as electric vehicles begin production at its new plant,” Chui responded in an email. “The transition to hybrids is an integral part of Honda’s electrification strategy.

“The new Civic Hybrid begins production this year in Alliston. The new plant is for pure electric vehicles. Different factories for different cars.”

Honda’s plans, which will continue to unfold as more details become clear, are significant in the overall design of electric vehicle development and construction.

Brendan Sweeney, managing director of the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing and Social Science Center at Western University, marveled at the enormity of Honda’s announcement as he listened to the details in Alliston last month.

He also outlined his plan to finance it with help from the federal government, which has created a 10 percent EV supply chain investment tax credit to attract private investment in EV assembly, battery manufacturing and manufacturing of cathodic active materials.

“They’ve been able to align all three of the highest value components of the EV supply chain: assembly, battery cell manufacturing, and what we’ll hear more about down the road: cathode active material manufacturing, CAM manufacturing. — one of the most important parts of the battery cell,” Sweeney said. “I think they’ve been able to do it creatively with the tax credit, with other incentives.

“This is a real vote of confidence in Simcoe County, the people they have here, the way we do business in Ontario and in Canada.”