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In the fall of 2020, the Ontario and federal governments announced they would spend a combined $590 million to help Ford Motor Company retool an assembly plant in Oakville to produce electric vehicles.
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Since that time, electric vehicle adoption has grown, and governments in Canada have plunked down billions of dollars to entice new plants and projects connected to an electric vehicle battery supply chain.
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This week on Down to Business, Brendan Sweeney managing director of the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing, a think-tank at Western University in London Ontario and Joanna Kyriazis, transportation program manager for Clean Energy Canada, a think-tank based at Simon Fraser University, discussed what their modelling showed about the economic impacts of an EV supply chain could be.
In short, governments are going to need to plunk down many more billions of dollars to entice more automakers and battery manufacturers to build plants in Canada, but all levels of government will need to craft policies to rezone land and build electrical transmission and distribution capacity in order to support this burgeoning industry.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and YouTube where you can also subscribe to get new episodes every Wednesday morning.
If you have any questions about the show, or if there are topics you want us to tackle, email us: downtobusiness@postmedia.com.
• Email: gfriedman@postmedia.com | Twitter: GabeFriedz
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