ALLISTON (Canada), April 25 — Japanese auto large Honda introduced at this time the biggest automotive funding in Canada’s historical past, price C$15 billion (RM71 billion), for a large new EV battery and vehicle meeting plant.
Honda chief govt Toshihiro Mibe informed a joint information convention with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and different officers that electrical autos (EVs) will begin rolling off the meeting line in 2028.
Once totally operational, the manufacturing facility can have a manufacturing capability of 240,000 autos per yr, and a batteries output of 36 GWh per yr.
Honda estimates that 1,000 new jobs will probably be created on the facility, which is to be constructed subsequent its current Civic and CR-V meeting crops north of Toronto that already make use of 4,200 employees.
“This is a historic day with the biggest auto funding in Canada’s historical past,” Trudeau stated.
He touted Ottawa’s efforts to arrange “a complete ecosystem” across the manufacturing of electrical batteries, positioning Canada as a horny vacation spot for electrical vehicle funding, with beneficiant tax incentives, renewable power entry and its uncommon mineral deposits.
“Because of the alternatives our authorities has remodeled the previous few years, Canada now ranks first, globally in Bloomberg’s rating of lithium-ion battery provide chains,” Trudeau stated.
This effort additionally helped Canada final yr appeal to the “highest per capita overseas direct funding in the G7” and the third most in the world after the United States and Brazil, he stated.
In the federal funds final week, Trudeau’s authorities launched a brand new enterprise tax credit score, granting firms a ten per cent rebate on building prices for brand spanking new services used in key segments of the electrical vehicle provide chain.
Canada’s technique follows that of the neighbouring United States, whose Inflation Reduction Act has supplied a bunch of incentives for inexperienced business.
Since 2021, Honda has made large outlays because it aggressively pursues its goal of turning into 100 per cent electrical in its vehicle phase by 2040.
Honda’s new facility in Alliston, Ontario would be the first to faucet into Canada’s EV provide chain funding tax credit score, and joins not too long ago introduced Volkswagen and Stellantis battery crops in Canada. — eNM
