Ford Motor Company is investing C$1.8 billion (US$1.3 billion) in its Oakville Assembly Complex to transform it into a high-volume hub of electric vehicle manufacturing in Canada. The campus, to be renamed Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex, will begin to retool and modernize in the second quarter of 2024 to prepare for production of next-generation EVs.

This marks the first time a full-line automaker has announced plans to produce passenger EVs in Canada for the North American market.

The investment allows Ford to repurpose and transform existing buildings into a state-of-the-art facility that leverages Ford of Canada’s skilled and experienced workforce. Ford is taking a diverse strategic approach to transforming its industrial system to expand EV production: building new greenfield sites and also transforming existing manufacturing sites such as Oakville and Cologne, Germany.

The current 487-acre Oakville site includes three body shops, one paint building, one assembly building. The transformed campus will feature a new 407,000 square-foot on-site battery plant that will utilize cells and arrays from BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky. Oakville workers will take these components and assemble battery packs that will then be installed in vehicles assembled on-site.

In addition to the Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex upgrades, Ford also has announced:

• It is creating an all-new EV manufacturing ecosystem in West Tennessee—called BlueOval City—the home of a battery plant and the future home of Ford’s next-generation EV pickup. Together with two battery plants in Kentucky, which are part of a joint venture with SK On, these sites will create 11,000 new US jobs and expected to begin production in 2025. (Earlier post.)

• Through a wholly owned subsidiary, Ford is building a lithium iron phosphate battery plant in Marshall, Mich. Production is slated to begin in 2026, with 2,500 employees. Ford is the first automaker to commit to build both lithium iron phosphate and nickel cobalt manganese batteries in the US. (Earlier post.)

• It is modernizing its vehicle assembly campus in Cologne, Germany, transforming it to become the Ford Cologne Electrification Center—the company’s first EV center of excellence in Europe. This site will be the production home of the electric Ford Explorer for European customers; production begins later this year. (Earlier post.)

• Ford, LG Energy Solution and Koç Holding have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to build one of the largest commercial electric vehicle battery cell production facilities in the European region. The project is on track to break ground near Ankara, Turkey, later this year, with production to start in 2026. (Earlier post.)

• Ford this year is expanding production of the F-150 Lightning at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn and the Mustang Mach-E at its Cuautitlan facility on Mexico.