The campus will be renamed Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex and will begin to retool and modernise in the second quarter of 2024 to prepare for production of next-generation EVs.
According to Ford, this marks the first time a full-line car manufacturer has announced plans to produce passenger EVs in Canada for the North American market.
“Canada and the Oakville complex will play a vital role in our Ford+ transformation. It will be a modern, super-efficient, vertically integrated site for battery and vehicle assembly,” said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO. “I’m most excited for the world to see the incredible next generation electric and fully digitally connected vehicles produced in Oakville.”
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Ford said it is taking a diverse strategic approach to transforming its industrial system to expand EV production, by building greenfield sites and transforming existing manufacturing sites.
“Ford of Canada has been a leader in the country’s auto industry since it was founded 119 years ago,” said Bev Goodman, president and CEO, Ford of Canada. “As the top-selling auto brand in Canada for 14 straight years, the successful transition to EV production in Oakville will help deliver stable Canadian employment with the opportunity to build the new skills and expertise to drive Ford and the industry forward.”
The current 487-acre Oakville site includes three body shops, one paint building, and one assembly building. The transformed campus will feature a new 407,000 square-foot on-site battery plant that will utilise cells and arrays from Blue Oval SK Battery Park in Kentucky.
Staff at Oakville will use these components to build battery packs that will then be installed in vehicles assembled on-site.
In Europe, Ford is modernising its vehicle assembly campus in Cologne, Germany, transforming it to become the Ford Cologne Electrification Center – the company’s first EV centre of excellence in Europe. This site will produce the electric Ford Explorer with production beginning later this year.
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