OTTAWA, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday announced Japanese car maker Honda's largest investment in North America to create Canada's first comprehensive electric vehicle (EV) supply chain.
According to a news release from the prime minister's office, Honda, with an investment of approximately 15 billion Canadian dollars (11 billion U.S. dollars), will build an EV assembly plant as well as a new stand-alone battery manufacturing plant at Honda's facilities in Alliston, Ontario.
To complete the supply chain, Honda will also build a cathode active material and precursor (CAM/pCAM) 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.
Once fully operational in 2028, the new assembly plant will produce up to 240,000 vehicles per year, the release added.
Apart from Honda's new project, automotive and battery makers have announced more than 31 billion Canadian dollars (23 billion U.S. dollars) in investments in EV manufacturing across Canada since 2020.
In Budget 2024, the federal government announced its intention to introduce the new 10 percent EV Supply Chain investment tax credit to attract investment across at least three supply chain segments: EV assembly, EV battery productions and cathode active material production.
Canada has an ambitious target of 100 percent zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035. It is projected that the global sales of EVs will be over three times higher in 2030 than it was in 2023, and Canada is well positioned to be a major player in EV production, the release said.
