Automotive News Canada - October 2022 - 41

* OCTOBER 2022
41
To realize the
full potential of
electrification -
perhaps 250,000
jobs - there
needs to be a plan
By DAVID KENNEDY
T ORONTO BUREAU CHIEF
EARLY COORDINATION AND
effective groundwork helped Canadian
governments notch key wins this year in
the electric-vehicle and battery supply
chain sectors.
But to maximize
the country's
long-term potential
in these competitive
emerging
segments,
TECHNOLOGY
SPOTLIGHT
industry leaders say, Canada must develop
a unified game plan.
" Now is the time for stepping up our
ambition and building on those key
pieces, " said Evan Pivnick,
clean-energy program manager
for the think tank Clean Energy
Canada.
" Anchor " investments
such as the
$5-billion Windsor,
Ont., battery cell
plant planned by
Stellantis and LG
Energy Solution put
Canada in a good
position on EV and
battery production,
Pivnick said, but the country
has not really " connected
the dots yet " on a wider
ecosystem.
Canada can take advantage of existing
strengths across six of nine key stages
in the EV battery supply chain.
ILLUSTRATION: CLEAN ENERGY CANADA,
TRILLIUM NETWORK FOR ADVANCED MANUFACTURING
said, has been to create the type of expansive
industry highlighted in the Clean
Energy-Trillium report.
$50 BILLION
WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO PLUG IN TO NEARLY
A joint analysis by Clean
Energy Canada and the Trillium Network
for Advanced Manufacturing, released in
September, determined that a Canadian
EV battery supply chain firing on all cylinders
could be worth $48.2 billion and
employ nearly 250,000 by 2030.
But this scenario - the most ambitious
of four outcomes assessed in the report -
is far from a foregone conclusion.
Getting to that scale would require
an interconnected supply chain running
from mineral mining and processing,
through battery cell production, EV
assembly and battery material recycling.
A $48.2-billion industry would require
four battery cell plants roughly the size
of the planned site in Windsor, nearly
two dozen critical-mineral mines and the
conversion of all Ontario auto assembly
plants to fully electric vehicles by 2030,
the report says.
LAYING OUT THE POSSIBILITIES
The base scenario mapped out in
the report, however, resembles what
Canada's EV battery supply chain would
look like at decade's end if no further
investments were made. This middling
outcome would result in a sector that
employs 60,000 Canadians and is valued at
$12.2 billion, the report says.
" Unless we agree that we need to take
stock of what our competitive advantages
are ... and where we want to compete, we
risk spending a lot of money pursuing a
very expensive industry without necessarily
getting the maximum results that we
can achieve, " Pivnick said.
The Clean Energy Canada and Trillium
Network report lists six recommendations
for building Canada's battery ecosystem,
with the development of a national battery
strategy chief among them.
The federal government needs to take
the lead, said Brendan Sweeney, the
Trillium Network's managing director.
Unless we agree that we need to take stock of what our
competitive advantages are... and where we want to
compete, we risk spending a lot of money pursuing a
very expensive industry without necessarily getting the
maximum results that we can achieve.
EVAN PIVNICK
Clean Energy Canada
AND WHAT THE CANADIAN
EV INDUSTRY COULD LOOK LIKE
Champagne:
" I like strategy,
but I prefer action
sometimes. ...
We have all the
ingredients to
attract these
investments in
Canada. "
FILE PHOTO
And the strategy
needs quantitative,
public-facing benchmarks.
" Let's
not be scared
about setting ambitious
goals, " Sweeney
said. The government
should get granular
in its targets, he
said, breaking out the
number of EVs, battery
cells and tonnes
of battery materials
it wants Canada to be
producing by 2030.
But FrançoisPhilippe
Champagne,
Canada's minister of
innovation, science
and industry, was
noncommittal.
" I like strategy,
Sweeney:
The federal
government
needs to lead
the way on
electrification
strategy. " Let's
not be scared
about setting
ambitious
goals. "
FILE PHOTO
but I prefer action sometimes, " he told
Automotive News Canada, without directly
saying whether Ottawa would spearhead
a national battery strategy.
" You need vision and action. We are
in the thick of it. For me, that strategy is
happening every single day. "
For more than a year, Champagne has
been traveling to Asia, Europe and the
United States, actively pitching to auto
and battery industry players that Canada
is the place to anchor for the future.
" We have access to markets, we have
the critical minerals, we have the ecosystem,
we have the talented people, " he said.
" We have all the ingredients to attract
these investments in Canada. "
The goal from the outset, Champagne
" I'm working every day to make that
a reality, " he said. " Whatever the final
number [of jobs] will be is something for
experts like that to look at. But what I can
assure you is that for me, I
see big. "
Such government attention
- at the federal, provincial
and local levels -
has been instrumental in
Ontario's success so far, said
Stephen MacKenzie, president
of Invest WindsorEssex,
southwestern Ontario's economic-development
agency.
The magnitude of the opportunity
and its limited timeline
helped catalyze action,
he said.
" They don't build battery
plants every year, "
MacKenzie said. " Whoever
was going to get this round of
battery plants - and they're
being sited, announced all over the world
still - once they're built, that's probably it
for a generation. "
The focus from all levels of government
has sharpened on EV and battery supply
chains recently as automotive, economic
and environmental goals aligned.
MacKenzie said. Without a coordinated
effort between levels of government, a battery
plant in Windsor would never have
materialized, he said.
BENEFITS BEYOND BATTERIES
EV assembly and battery cell manufacturing
account for about 60 per cent of
the potential jobs that the report forecasts
for 2030, but the opportunity extends far
beyond what has typically been considered
automotive.
Having all levels of government signed
onto a national battery
strategy will deliver
value-added jobs in
refining and processing
to rural areas of
the country rich in battery
metals, said the
Trillium Network's
Sweeney.
" This national strategy
should look to
leverage that we have
all the battery materials
in the ground, "
and restrict companies
without plans for
processing them in
Canada from accessing
the deposits.
Capturing these
early processing stages
of the EV supply
MacKenzie:
" They don't
build battery
plants every
year. ...
Once they're
built, that's
probably it for a
generation. "
SUPPLIED PHOTO
chain will give areas of the country with
no current automotive footprint a stake in
the national battery strategy and help spur
spinoff investments, Sweeney said.
" That is what's going to bring longer-term
wealth to communities that could
use it. " - ANC
THE POTENTIAL
A snapshot of Canada's potential
2030 EV supply chain
* Direct and indirect jobs: 246,958
* GDP added to economy:
$48.2 billion
* Annual government revenue:
$11 billion
* Annual EV assembly:
1,565,390 vehicles
* Key battery material mines: 21
Source: Clean Energy Canada, Trillium
Network for Advanced Manufacturing
Automotive News Canada - October 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - October 2022
