Transportation

Ford to spend $1.3B to transform Canada factory into EV manufacturing hub

Comment

Ford Mustang mach eEV 2022 New York International Auto Show
Image Credits: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg / Getty Images

Ford said Tuesday it will spend $1.34 billion (C$1.8B) to turn its 70-year-old Oakville facility in Canada into an assembly plant for its next-generation of electric vehicles.

The campus, which first opened in 1953, will be renamed Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex. The company said Tuesday it will begin modernizing the 487-acre site in the second quarter of 2024. The upgrade includes completely retooling the facility that currently produces the internal combustion engine-powered Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus to one that only produces EVs. This is the first time that Ford has completely retooled an existing plant for EVs in North America.

Ford also plans to add a 407,000-square-foot battery plant that will use cells and arrays from its BlueOvalSK Battery Park in Kentucky. Workers will assemble the components into battery packs and then install them into EVs produced at the plant.

“I’m most excited for the world to see the incredible next-generation electric and fully digitally connected vehicles produced in Oakville,” CEO Jim Farley said in a statement.

Ford, along with its rivals, are scrambling to upgrade existing facilities and build new ones as they shift from internal combustion engine vehicles to EVs. Ford has said it wants the production capacity to sell 2 million EVs a year globally by the end of 2026.

Ford has also announced plans to modernize its assembly plant in Cologne, Germany and build a $5.6 billion complex in Tennessee known as “BlueOval” that will be the epicenter of its future electric vehicles.

Ford announced in March that its BlueOval City complex outside of Memphis, Tennessee will include a truck plant capable of producing 500,000 electric vehicles a year. The first vehicle to come off the line will be a next-gen electric truck, code named Project T3, in 2025.

Construction at BlueOval City began last fall. A $5.8 billion sister site in Kentucky, called BlueOvalSK Battery Park, will house a pair of battery plants.

The company also announced in 2023 plans to invest $3.5 billion to build a factory in Michigan that will make cheaper lithium iron phosphate batteries for its growing portfolio of electric vehicles.

The factory will not make nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), a technology that is in its current EVs. Ford said it is working with Chinese company Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., known as CATL. Under the arrangement, Ford’s wholly owned subsidiary would manufacture the battery cells using LFP battery cell knowledge and services provided by CATL.

More TechCrunch

Instagram is expanding the scope of its “Limits” tool specifically for teenagers that would let them restrict unwanted interactions with people.

Instagram now lets teens limit interactions to their ‘Close Friends’ group to combat harassment

Archer Aviation is partnering with ride-hailing and parking company Kakao Mobility to bring electric air taxi flights to South Korea starting in 2026, if the company can get its aircraft…

Archer, Kakao Mobility partner to bring electric air taxis to South Korea in 2026

Agritech company Iyris helps growers across eleven countries globally increase crop yields, reduce input costs, and extend growing seasons.

Iyris makes fresh produce easier to grow in difficult climates, raises $16M

Exactly.ai says it uses generative AI to help artists retain legal ownership of their art while being able to reproduce their designs faster and at scale.

Exactly.ai secures $4M to help artists use AI to scale up their output

FintechOS competes with other companies such as Ncino, Meridian Link, Abrigo and Backbase.

Romanian startup FintechOS raises $60M to help old banks fight back against neobanks

After two years of preparation and four delays over the past several months due to technical glitches, Indian space startup Agnikul has successfully launched its first sub-orbital test vehicle, powered…

India’s Agnikul launches 3D-printed rocket in sub-orbital test after initial delays

Struggling EV startup Fisker has laid off hundreds of employees in a bid to stay alive, as it continues to search for funding, a buyout or prepare for bankruptcy. Workers…

Fisker cuts hundreds of workers in bid to keep EV startup alive

Chinese EV manufacturers face a new challenge in their pursuit of U.S. customers: a new House bill that would limit or ban the introduction of their connected vehicles. The bill,…

Chinese EV makers, and their connected vehicles, targeted by new House bill

With the release of iOS 18 later this year, Apple may again borrow ideas third-party apps. This time it’s Arc that could be among those affected.

Is Apple planning to ‘sherlock’ Arc?

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 will be in San Francisco on October 28–30, and we’re already excited! This is the startup world’s main event, and it’s where you’ll find the knowledge, tools…

Meet Visa, Mercury, Artisan, Golub Capital and more at TC Disrupt 2024

Featured Article

The women in AI making a difference

As a part of a multi-part series, TechCrunch is highlighting women innovators — from academics to policymakers —in the field of AI.

14 hours ago
The women in AI making a difference

Cadillac may seem a bit too traditional to hang its driving cap on EVs. And yet, that hasn’t stopped the GM brand from rolling out — or at least showing…

The Cadillac Optiq EV starts at $54,000 and is designed to hook young hipsters

Ifeel is being offered as part of an employer’s or insurance provider’s healthcare coverage.

Mental health insurance platform ifeel raises a $20 million Series B

Instead of opening the user’s actual browser or a WebView, Custom Tabs let users remain in their app while browsing.

Google Chrome becomes a ‘picture-in-picture’ app

Sanil Chawla remembers the meetings he had with countless artists in college. Those creatives were looking for one thing: sustainable economic infrastructure that could help them scale rather than drown…

Slingshot raises $2.2 million to provide financial services to artists

A startup called Firefly that’s tackling the thorny and growing issue of cloud asset management with an “infrastructure as code” solution has raised $23 million in funding. That comes on…

Firefly forges on after co-founder murdered by Hamas

Mistral, the French AI startup backed by Microsoft and valued at $6 billion, has released its first generative AI model for coding, dubbed Codestral. Like other code-generating models, Codestral is…

Mistral releases Codestral, its first generative AI model for code

Pinterest announced today that it is evolving its Creator Inclusion Fund to now be called the Pinterest Inclusion Fund. Pinterest teamed up with Shopify’s Build Black and Build Native programs…

Pinterest expands its Creator Fund to allow founders

Alex Taub, a longtime founder with multiple exits under his belt, believes it’s time to disrupt the meme industry. “I have this big thesis that meme tech is going to…

This founder says meme tech is the next big thing

Lux, the startup behind popular pro photography app Halide and others, is venturing into video with its latest app launch. On Wednesday, the company announced Kino, a new video capture app…

Kino is a new iPhone app for videographers from the makers of Halide

DevOps startup Harness has shown itself to be an ambitious company, building a broad platform of services while also dabbling in M&A when it made sense to fill in functionality.…

Harness snags Split.io as it goes all in on feature flags and experiments

Microsoft’s Copilot, a generative AI-powered tool that can generate text as well as answer specific questions, is now available as an in-app chatbot on Telegram, the instant messaging app.  Currently…

Microsoft’s Copilot is now on Telegram

HBO’s new documentary, “MoviePass, MovieCrash,” tells a story that many of us know about: how MoviePass, the subscription-based movie ticketing startup, was a catastrophic failure. After a series of mishaps…

MoviePass co-founders speak their truth in HBO’s new documentary 

The watch features a variety of different 3D games, unlocking more play time the more kids move.

Fitbit’s new kid smartwatch is a little Wiimote, a little Tamagotchi

In the video, a crowd is roaring at a packed summer music festival. As a beat starts playing over the speakers, the performer finally walks onstage: It’s the Joker. Clad…

Discord has become an unlikely center for the generative AI boom

After the Wirecard scandal, Germany’s financial regulator BaFin started to look more closely at young fintech startups that wanted to grow at a rapid pace — it’s better to be…

Germany’s financial regulator ends anti-money laundering cap on N26 signups after $10M fine

Among other things, this includes the ability to trace code from source to binary packages across both platforms, single sign-on support and unified project structures.

JFrog and GitHub team up to closely integrate their source code and binary platforms

The company’s public fund disbursement and e-commerce platform makes accepting school tuition and enabling educational enrichment more accessible. 

Tech startup Odyssey goes on journey to help states implement school choice programs

A new startup called Kinnect aims to help people privately save generational memories, traditions, recipes and more. The company’s app, launched this month, lets people create invite-only spaces where they…

Kinnect’s new app aims to help families record and store generational memories

Spotify has hiked its premium subscription in France by an eye-watering €0.13, in response to a new music-streaming tax.

Spotify hikes subscription price in France by 1.2% to match new music-streaming tax