Electric cars: Stellantis invests heavily in Canada

Stellantis is turning a little more towards electric. At least in North America. The automotive giant announced on Monday May 2 that it would invest 3.6 billion Canadian dollars (2.7 billion euros) to modernize and adapt two factories in Canada to electric vehicles. This investment must “ensure the future” of the two assembly plants in Windsor and Brampton, in the province of Ontario, announced in a press release the North American division of the group, which produces the brands Jeep, Chrysler, Ram, Dodge or Fiat.

The Windsor plant – opposite the city of Detroit, the cradle of the American automotive industry – will be “transformed” from 2023 so that its production lines can produce electric or hybrid vehicles. In Windsor, too, a plant for electric batteries for vehicles will be built, in partnership with LG, the group announced at the end of March. That of Brampton will be “re-equipped and completely modernized” to have, in 2025, a factory with a “flexible and brand new architecture to support the company’s electrification projects. “The two factories, once renovated, will operate in three -eight. The models that will be produced there have not been revealed.

650 jobs created

The investment also concerns an R&D center in Windsor, which will create “more than 650 highly skilled engineering positions in various fields to support Stellantis’ growth in the electrification” of its vehicles. The federal government and the province have announced that they will invest approximately half a billion Canadian dollars each in this project. “This is what a healthy environment and a healthy economy look like,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement. “These investments reaffirm our long-term commitment to Canada and represent an important step on our path to zero-emission vehicles,” Stellantis North America operations director Mark Stewart said in a statement.

Globally, the group plans to launch 75 electric models by 2030 for its Peugeot, Opel, Fiat, Alfa Romeo or Maserati brands, Stellantis, based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, announced in early March. The group, resulting from the merger of Peugeot-Citroën and Fiat-Chrysler, wants to halve its carbon emissions by 2030 compared to those of 2021, and lower them by 90% by 2038. The group evokes a “zero carbon emission” balance sheet with a maximum of 10% compensation.

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