The Volkswagen Group is pushing ahead with its ambitious electric vehicle strategy in North America. Its battery company PowerCo SE aims to build its largest gigafactory to date in St. Thomas, Ontario/Canada with an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase. The planned investment of up to €4.8 billion / CAD$ 7 billion until 2030 has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory and tens of thousands more indirect jobs in the region.
St. Thomas is the company’s first overseas gigafactory for cell manufacturing and will equip the Group brands’ BEVs in the North American region with cutting-edge unified cells, a whole new cell technology designed for volume production. Groundbreaking is planned for 2024 and production is projected to begin in 2027. The cell factory is part of a larger plan that Volkswagen and PowerCo agreed upon with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in August last year. The Memorandum of Understanding signed at the time focusses on battery value creation and raw material security in order to promote e-mobility in the country.
The decision to expand PowerCo SE’s cell production network to Canada is further proof of the ambitious growth strategy of the Volkswagen Group in North America. This includes the introduction of the broadest portfolio of full-electric vehicles in the United States and Canada by 2030, the expansion of Electrify America’s coast-to-coast charging network in the U.S. and Canada as well as the announcement of the iconic Scout brand to deliver its first all-electric vehicles in 2026.
The cell factory is being built over an area of around 370 acres (150 hectares), which corresponds to more than 210 soccer or football fields. The entire industrial and supplier park amounts to 1,500 acres (600 hectares). Its strategic location about 30 km south of London, Ontario, is at the heart of the Great Lakes Automotive Corridor and near major cities such as Toronto and Detroit. That gives PowerCo prime access to the regional research and innovation cluster, talented workforce, good transport infrastructure and established supply chains. Furthermore, the cell factory will be supplied with 100 % CO2-free energy.
Ontario is a leader in the global automotive industry and right on track to become a powerhouse in the emerging EV space. With more than 700 automotive-related companies, full access to critical minerals and its end-to-end, ethical battery supply chain, Ontario offers perfect conditions for EV investments. Since 2020, Ontario has attracted almost CAD$ 13 billion in electric vehicle and EV battery investments.
The Volkswagen Group has made battery technology a core element of its 10 Point Plan aimed at speeding up the company’s transformation. Volkswagen set up PowerCo SE in Germany, a separate battery company, bundling the Group’s global battery business across the entire value chain – from raw material supply and development to the construction and operation of gigafactories. Since its launch in July 2022, PowerCo SE has decided on the location of three cell factories in Salzgitter, Valencia and St. Thomas in North America. By 2030, PowerCo and partners are expected to generate annual revenue of over 20 billion euros.
