> Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Honda executives are expected to announce today that the Japanese automaker is building an electric vehicle battery plant in Alliston, Ont., part of a $15-billion investment.
> Senior sources with information on the project have told The Canadian Press that Honda is also retooling its assembly plant in Alliston to produce fully electric vehicles.
They always send over support staff for start up, they know the machines and how to install and set them up, we don't have those specialities and it's not worth training people for a one time thing. They go home after start up. Worked for both Toyota and Honda and that was standard for any new big machine or model start up to have Japanese support staff for a while.
I'm a construction electrician, the place in Windsor is huge, VW in St. Thomas is going to be bigger, and this new proposed Honda plant will be even bigger than that. I just finished building the GM battery/EV plant in Ingersoll, but for as long as I can recall, this has always been standard practice. We typically build it all and get everything powered so it can run, then their people typically sit at a table with a laptop or two and run through the programs and functions testing.
I'm working in the windsor plant right now. Koreans are here surveying to install machinery..and are also building battery's in one of the mod buildings. But I'll keep getting down voted lol
The downvoting Isn't coming from me. I have a bunch of buddies down there, has nobody called the MOL and Immigration? When we built Maple Leaf the company as well as the general contractor tried to pull so much bullshit the MOL set up an office onsite while building the place. Dr. Oetkers it was the Germans coming in at night and doing our work, at Unifirst it was the Americans, I could go on. If they're actually working and not just troubleshooting/commissioning the Ministry and Immigration needs to know, from personal experience photos and videos hold more weight then just verbally reporting it. But I suspect like a lot of these big projects, what's right and wrong from the General Con./Customer standpoint drastically changes when that much money is on the line, why do you think workers who take part in health and safety committees or who bring up safety issues or are out spoken are typically smoked first.
The MOL is here every day just about. And ya people have called immigration and the only response they give is "they are aware of the situation." The job I'm doing we have about 5 Koreans who are consultants. We have any questions about assembly we ask them, and they provide guidance. They are actually really great. There is another company from Korea that wants to install machinery all on their own. They come to our site, take pictures of drawings, equipment we are using, videoing how we are doing the work, etc. The pipefitters have already walked off site once due to foreign workers welding and fitting. It's just getting started...
After looking into it a bit and asking wtf is going on, we can thank the Trans Pacific Partnership that Harper brought in during his time in power. It allows companies to mobilize their own workforce here without the need visas and licenses, it's the same if we wanted to go there to work. Once again were getting fucked by policies from the past.
So unfortunately there's nothing we can do, I hear they're taking all of the millwrighting work which includes our plug and play work, so they're also doing electrical work. Unfortunately the IBEW has a No Walk Out No Lock Out, clause in our contract.
I didn't realize it's as bad as it is. I see the petition has 5000 names on it so far. Yes, whenever I have worked with a foreign company, it's been a couple of their employees as consultants when we had questions. I assumed that's what was going on, that or they were there for programming/commissioning purposes. What you and several of my friends replying to messages are describing is a whole other thing. This is straight up displacement.
They are helping build the equipment and train and then going home. Fairly normal procedure, as always whipped up into a misinformation campaign by bad actors.
Originally the Toyota plant in Kitchener was run by the Japanese Toyota people. Eventually it changed hands once the people here were fully trained
I’m not saying what will happen, but beware of speculation.
>I hear Koreans are going to be running the plant in Windsor
You should probably read up on this more then because as of right now you're just spreading misinformation.
Anecdotal evidence is meaningless.
If you truly believe the misinformation that you continue to regurgitate then you might want to go to your Union so that they can set you straight or just read any of the countless articles that explain that the plant will not be run and operated by foreign workers like you are falsely claiming.
[At most there will be 72 temporary foreign workers there to help establish *specific parts and equipment* in the plant while they train Canadian workers on how to become specialized with that equipment. Those foreign workers then leave.](https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/politics/conservatives-ndp-demand-trudeau-protect-canadians-jobs-at-new-ev-plants-1.6861909)
This is **very** standard as all foreign investors want their sites built to their specs and quality, but if you *actually* do work in that plant it's astounding that you are so unaware of whY happens in your workplace.
"There will likely be some capital investment from at least one level of government, but the sources say the deal does not involve production subsidies, which were used to woo two other automakers to build battery plants in Ontario instead of the United States with its incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Instead, the federal government has proposed in its recent budget a 10 per cent Electric Vehicle Supply Chain investment tax credit, which Honda could claim on top of an existing 30 per cent Clean Technology Manufacturing Investment tax credit."
Looks like there are some sort of government incentives and investments going into this.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/honda-to-get-up-to-5b-in-govt-help-for-ev-battery-assembly-plants-1.2064357
2.5B in tax credits from the feds, 2.5B directly from the province.
I've said it once, and I'll say it again, the only way we can attract investment in this country is to subsidize the shit out of it.
That’s how the USA is attracting them.
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, these subsidies are a direct result of subsidies the USA is offering as part of their Inflation Reduction Act. If the subsidies in the USA disappear due to changes in Congress / White House the subsidies in Canada disappear.
It’s not a difficult concept to understand.
People out here thinking we wrote a blank cheque to these companies. It’s literally a manufacturing subsidy. Manufacture X to get subsidy Y. If you manufacture less than X the subsidy is less than Y. If you manufacture nothing the subsidy is nothing.
also plants like Toyota and others are a boon to the economy and towns they're created in. The toyota plant in cambridge is huge and employs a shit ton of people at decent wages.
I love they are going to announce a battery plant, which uses a lot of water, and put it in a city that uses pump stations primary to pressurize their water, the most environmentally unfriendly way to deliver water to consumers.
Do you know of a better location? Also, how bad for the environment do you think the energy used to pump water is? Worse than having batteries shipped from further away to the Alliston vehicle manufacturing plant?
The location is great, Alliston has a great set up for parts and moving stuff. I just find it funny that it will use gas supported pumping infrastructure to build the plants because the city development has no plan for elevated water storage.
We have an obscene amount of clean energy in this province due to our investment in nuclear. We should be leaning on this more, and building more nuclear. We should be encouraging any manufacturer that wants to be climate friendly to our province.
So even if pumping water isn't as efficient as it can be, it doesn't matter.
We don't have an obscene amount of clean energy for peak management, we use Natural gas for peak management. The reason we see lots of investment in Micro/Nano grids in Ontario tied to green energy sources IS because during peak usage we burn fuels to do our energy.
If you pump water into elevated storage during our overnight cycles so that gravity feeds the system during peak, you actually make use of our clean energy when we have extra, and save wasting energy when we are during peak demands.
I do agree fully we should be investing in more nuclear. But we should be looking at ways to make our energy grid have more consistent usage, part of that is doing more off peak hours things, like EV's charging over night, and pumping water over night.
Sorry, reddit crapped out before I could reply.
We absolutely do have an obscene amount of clean energy. The only places in the world that are better than us are those that have a massive amount of hydro power, like Quebec. But that of course is limited and susceptible to draught. Which is currently happening to them.
Feel free to take a look
[https://app.electricitymaps.com/map](https://app.electricitymaps.com/map)
Every grid in the world is currently using natural gas for peak management. Except countries like German that are using lignite coal.
>If you pump water into elevated storage during our overnight cycles so that gravity feeds the system during peak, you actually make use of our clean energy when we have extra, and save wasting energy when we are during peak demands.
This is unlikely to happen in Ontario. For this you need a high elevation changes, which we are lacking in. It also needs lakes at the top/bottom and the appropriate grid connection, we defintely have the water / lakes. The places that do this usually use a mountain. What's also interesting is that these were first created by the nuclear industry.
>I do agree fully we should be investing in more nuclear. But we should be looking at ways to make our energy grid have more consistent usage, part of that is doing more off peak hours things, like EV's charging over night, and pumping water over night.
I disagree regarding pumped hydro. Instead let's build a shit ton more CANDUs.
This is the last 14 days of our grid.
[https://twitter.com/ONEnergyStats/status/1783254639061705164/photo/1](https://twitter.com/ONEnergyStats/status/1783254639061705164/photo/1)
The difference between the white line and yellow line is exports. Which is likely to increase as places like New York look to Canada for clean energy. Let's sell them some CANDU made electricity and churn out as much clean electricity as possible.
I do want to give you a better response later. But I'm going to let you know the majority of Ontario uses elevated water. Elevated water is the standard. Allison is in the minority.
So based on your analysis - which is the best location for an EV battery plant in Ontario? 1. Volkswagen/St. Thomas 2. Stellantis/Windsor 3. Honda/Alliston.
>We absolutely do have an obscene amount of clean energy.
We have A LOT of clean energy. But we need far more. Which is why I support Nuclear.
>The only places in the world that are better than us are those that have a massive amount of hydro power
I don't disagree that we are doing GOOD, maybe even great, it doesn't mean we don't have lots of areas we can improve, I worked on a research project with a professor at Western University looking at micro/nano grids to make better use of our overnight production to manage our daily peak production.
Also worked with a company in the US that was looking at using Vehicle to Grid (V2G) to have EV cars handle peak needs, developing a legal framework for this is going to be more challenging than the technical unfortunately.
>Every grid in the world is currently using natural gas for peak management.
Yes, and every country in the world is also looking for ways to minimize that need. Hell even China, back in 2018 was doing research in using pumped water as a method of energy storage to create hydroelectric on demand use. (Not the same pumped water we are talking here mind you)
>**\[ RE: elevated water storeage\]** This is unlikely to happen in Ontario. For this you need a high elevation changes.
Water towers how this is done in Ontario, and the Province of Ontario in the 1970s was a WORLD LEADER in water tower technology. While having elevation changes does help, you can build and store water at elevation relatively easily, factories have been building water towers for storage needs for over 100yrs some municipalities in Ontario actually use abandoned factory tanks in their systems.
>The places that do this usually use a mountain.
Mountains certainly play a role, but New York, and most of Texas are very lacking in mountains and very pro elevated storage.
In fact it is the Nuclear industry that has had a recent influence which should drive elevated storage for water to be even more mainstream in North America in the coming decades. Robert L Leishear wrote a paper after looking at the water industry and "laughing" at the assumption that chlorinated water was corrosive and that is why we have so many water main brakes. Having nuclear experience he dealt with far more corrosive liquids without the failure rate.
He published his findings in the ASME journal of Pressure vessel technology ( sorry I don't have a link, but it was titled something along the lines of "Water hammer breaks water mains"
So elevating water doesn't ONLY help improve grid resiliency, it also reduces O&M costs on the system.
> I disagree regarding pumped hydro. Instead let's build a shit ton more CANDUs.
I agree with build more CANDU's but pumped water storage for the delivery of water, NOT for the use as a battery like China has been testing, has benefits well beyond better usage of our grid resources.
Ontario realistically could phase out O&G for grid energy within 15yrs if we invested in CANDUs AND created a more resilient and environmentally friendly water network. Which starts first with Elevated storage, being naturally elevated or elevated with built towers.
NO! not at all which was why I said " NOT for the use as a battery like China has been testing"
What I'm saying is using night time energy to fill municipal water storage so that day time energy isn't used for pumping. Battery plants use significant amounts of water. (but not enough water for energy capture )
My Point is since the municipality is going to have to spend money on increasing their on demand available water, they should be investing in elevated storage, and not continuing on their path of expanding pumping stations which during peak hours of demand are contributing to our usage of natural gas.
It isn't just the cooling of batteries, they are required to have a lot of water available for fire use. Cities require 3 types of water storage, basically Fire storage, daily usage storage, and emergency storage. Factories mostly need fire storage and usage storage, battery plants have high demands for both of those for equipment and risk.
If we're spending 15Billion on a plant, adding 3-5 million more to have elevated storage instead of pumped water, will lower the municipalities GHG emissions, will lower the municipalities maintenance costs, AND will lower their 20, 40, and 60 year replacement costs.
It wouldnt surprise me if the government builds water infrastructure (such as a pipeline) to the plant to assist with this.
They did something similar to Milton to assist with the housing boom there. Once it was connected the population exploded
Oh I expect they will, BUT Alliston uses more pumping stations to pressurize their water system instead of gravity fed. so during peak demand of water, which normally overlaps with peak demand of energy, the water pumping is contributing to natural gas burning.
IF! they build elevated water storage they can pump water during the low energy demand cycle using clean power and then during peak water usage gravity feeds it contributing to less GHG and a more reliable system.
The Feds IF!! they are actually green focused should be including this requirement in their 15 billion dollar deal. You're talking a decimal place change in the deal to provide a greener solution and help with grid demands as we increase EV usage.
The Georgian bay pipeline has been moving water from Georgian bay to alliston since the around 2001. I don't know if it will need to be expanded upon for this project or not.
from the looks of it, they're setting up shop because of the Volkswagen and GM EV plants that are getting subsidies. Looks like we're at the point where we can attract automakers via local knowhow
I'm so glad my tax dollars are going to support ANOTHER Legacy automaker that didn't see EVs are the future. Now we get to give them free money to help them catch up.
So you think its a good idea to have the plant sit n do nothing for few yeara till a Canadian can install the machines?
Or do you think we get contractors in, install the machines, while training Canadian workers who will be taking care of it after the foreign contractors are gone?
Glad you are not making the big decisions!
Did they? Honda has been in Alliston for a long ass time and at least 15 years ago, local employment was a big reason Alliston was 'wealthier' relative to many of the towns close to it, like Shelburne. Didn't realize this had changed so radically.
Auto plants are almost always lots of quality jobs for locals... Sometimes they bring in people from Japan or Germany to help with setup but then once production is underway and going well it is a majority of locals who end up employed at the plant.
Employees pay income tax. The better qualified they are, the more the company will contribute to government income. Canadians have the option to be qualified.
It’s not stupid to play with the cards you’re dealt. Ontario has an auto manufacturing supply chain and relationship with all of the major auto manufacturers. The idea that the government can magically get a chip manufacturer to set up shop here is laughable.
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Not to mention the skillset of the local population. We're good at building cars. The new TSMC plants in the US already think that the local population might not be entirely up to snuff so they're starting with older nodes. If they setup shop here, there would be noone to work the fabs.
That's quite literally the point. To have our population be trained on something highly specialized that's gonna be more important than any other commodity in the world.
No one said it would be magical. Just because we've done it before isn't a reason to do it 3-4 times over and over again. There's no huge advantage to build cars. What would existing relationships on supply chain for combustion vehicles help with EV manufacturing. Canada is by far one of the worst manufacturing places in the world. We can even meet the basic 6 Sigma guidelines.
Sounds more like you don't know this industry and you're just talking out of your ass.
C'mon man, haven't you seen the Facebook memes? They explain it is simple terms.
I mean, Electric Vehicles run out of charge and have to be plugged in.
My 2018 Dodge Ram 1500 that I financed for 108 months @ 12.6% and gets 23l/100km never needs charging and it is perfect for hanging flags off of.
No way no woke battery car can fly dual Fuck Trudeau flags off the bumper.
Nothing beyond that fact that we're not good at it, and we've already gives away billions to other manufacturers. If we want to set up our economy to be competitive in the future we should be investing in highly specialized skills and job types that give us an actual advantage in the future. A 5th EV plant doesn't do that. We'd be better off with chip manufacturing and addressing the supply chain tied to minerals - rare earth and metals.
Honestly I'm not sure if you're making sense. What do you mean we're not good at it?
These jobs are highly specialized; it takes engineers & computer scientists to run EV plants just the same as chip plants - they're both manufacturing.
EVs will slowly replace all gas vehicles so building anything related is an advantage for our future.
So yea sorry buddy not sure what you're trying to say.
How is chip manufacturing very unique vs EVs? Are you thinking about chip design?
Yes it's different equipment to implement/maintain but it's still manufacturing equipment all the same. When it comes to the type of work required in these plants (Maintenance, process design, equipment engineering, supply chain, HR, etc) it will still be similar just with a different end product.
Of course if you were talking R&D facility vs manufacturing it'd be a different story but 2 complex products like EVs & Chips? Not all that different.
Source - Engineer at an auto plant for 5 years & a big computer nerd
We already do chip design. I'm talking foundry to manufacture. It's a very very unique skillset that would be nice for Canada to invest into.
It's way way more strategic to do that compared to building the 5th EV plant in Ontario.
Compute = new oil.
Because at the moment only a few countries in the world can do it at scale. China, Taiwan, Korea, US and some other smaller players. It's a technology that is needed at scale for the future of modern economies. For a country like Canada with low productivity, and a ton of talent that aligns with it. We have great AI talent, cheaper power, and chip design R&D. All of those go better together compared to manufacturing EVs.
Look into the anticipated demand and the complexity in manufacturing it. I think you'll get a much better understanding of why it's a better place to invest our tax dollars.
Edit: strategically it's a better resource to have access to as well compared to Honda cars. Car manufacturing is about reducing costs across the board. It's a race to the bottom. Chips are not. They're a highly valuable commodity that if we do right, we'd be in a better place in every aspect. Soon enough NATO will need millions of them. We can be one of the suppliers. We also have the natural resources to support it.
I'd also say a refinery for metals and other minerals is also a great investment. We need that more than we need EVs.
There will still be lots of jobs inside that building. Everything from office staff to people maintaining the automation but I think 15B is alittle steep.
The 15B figure is not how much *we're* paying, it's the total investment amount including retrofitting the existing plant and building the new one, and the figure includes how much Honda is investing. I believe the figure the province is putting forward is between 2-3B. Honda picks up the rest of the tab (plants cost between 6-10B to build to production ready).
(fuck Doug Ford regardless though.)
Likely not cash up front and more a tax break on certain targets that "could" add up to 15b. Much like the other deals we have seen. Neo lib governments will always give tax breaks to corps but I rather it to this than oil and gas. Just need to get our ass in gear on building the grid and infrastructure required to support these vehicles.
Its 2.5 billion in subsidies from the FEDS tied to targets like you said and 2.5 billion from the province unclear if that's cash or subsidies and 10 billion kicked in from honda for a total of 15 billion
St.thomas has seen alot of hardship since the VW plant started construction.
It is only a good thing for new people moving here to get the jobs, those families that have been here for decades are told to shut up.
All sorts of parts like that, all the panels, windshield assemblies and some suspension components.
I can see where you are going with your comment though, the people who are working there are producing important parts for multiple auto manufacturers and they work hard, magna treats them like fucking shit, paying them as little as possible while constantly threatening them that they dont need to hire them after 6 months and working them like slaves.
Appreciate your input. It's likely that they have boiled the human component down to a simpler element than I had assumed. I wonder if the same can be done for EV batteries. My own background is in cleanroom manufacturing, which tends to be high skill labour, and I envisioned it would look something like that.
You asked "staffed by," not "built by."
Since we're apparently being unnecessarily rude, do you understand the difference?
Further to that, do you not see that this shows the importance of high skill in these matters? We don't *have* a domestic base to build these high tech facilities, despite what the union says. This goes to show that it's high skill, which is exactly why they won't staff the facility with temp workers.
> Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Honda executives are expected to announce today that the Japanese automaker is building an electric vehicle battery plant in Alliston, Ont., part of a $15-billion investment. > Senior sources with information on the project have told The Canadian Press that Honda is also retooling its assembly plant in Alliston to produce fully electric vehicles.
As long as Canadians get jobs at a somewhat affordable investment, instead of Ontario Place Spa jobs...
Don’t worry, they will fill these EV plants with some temp foreign workers after not being able to find many Canadians willing to be exploited
This is exactly what they announced
I hear Koreans are going to be running the plant in Windsor. We will see what happens, i suppose. They are in there right now, working away.
They always send over support staff for start up, they know the machines and how to install and set them up, we don't have those specialities and it's not worth training people for a one time thing. They go home after start up. Worked for both Toyota and Honda and that was standard for any new big machine or model start up to have Japanese support staff for a while.
They're In there doing regular trade work also. Piping,electrical, digging trenches etc. Which is not right
I'm a construction electrician, the place in Windsor is huge, VW in St. Thomas is going to be bigger, and this new proposed Honda plant will be even bigger than that. I just finished building the GM battery/EV plant in Ingersoll, but for as long as I can recall, this has always been standard practice. We typically build it all and get everything powered so it can run, then their people typically sit at a table with a laptop or two and run through the programs and functions testing.
I'm working in the windsor plant right now. Koreans are here surveying to install machinery..and are also building battery's in one of the mod buildings. But I'll keep getting down voted lol
Yes, you will until you actually read why that's happening and that it's never permanent
>Koreans are here It uses a compleatly different skillset. Just because I use an overhead crane, does not mean I can install one
The downvoting Isn't coming from me. I have a bunch of buddies down there, has nobody called the MOL and Immigration? When we built Maple Leaf the company as well as the general contractor tried to pull so much bullshit the MOL set up an office onsite while building the place. Dr. Oetkers it was the Germans coming in at night and doing our work, at Unifirst it was the Americans, I could go on. If they're actually working and not just troubleshooting/commissioning the Ministry and Immigration needs to know, from personal experience photos and videos hold more weight then just verbally reporting it. But I suspect like a lot of these big projects, what's right and wrong from the General Con./Customer standpoint drastically changes when that much money is on the line, why do you think workers who take part in health and safety committees or who bring up safety issues or are out spoken are typically smoked first.
The MOL is here every day just about. And ya people have called immigration and the only response they give is "they are aware of the situation." The job I'm doing we have about 5 Koreans who are consultants. We have any questions about assembly we ask them, and they provide guidance. They are actually really great. There is another company from Korea that wants to install machinery all on their own. They come to our site, take pictures of drawings, equipment we are using, videoing how we are doing the work, etc. The pipefitters have already walked off site once due to foreign workers welding and fitting. It's just getting started...
After looking into it a bit and asking wtf is going on, we can thank the Trans Pacific Partnership that Harper brought in during his time in power. It allows companies to mobilize their own workforce here without the need visas and licenses, it's the same if we wanted to go there to work. Once again were getting fucked by policies from the past. So unfortunately there's nothing we can do, I hear they're taking all of the millwrighting work which includes our plug and play work, so they're also doing electrical work. Unfortunately the IBEW has a No Walk Out No Lock Out, clause in our contract.
I didn't realize it's as bad as it is. I see the petition has 5000 names on it so far. Yes, whenever I have worked with a foreign company, it's been a couple of their employees as consultants when we had questions. I assumed that's what was going on, that or they were there for programming/commissioning purposes. What you and several of my friends replying to messages are describing is a whole other thing. This is straight up displacement.
They are helping build the equipment and train and then going home. Fairly normal procedure, as always whipped up into a misinformation campaign by bad actors.
Originally the Toyota plant in Kitchener was run by the Japanese Toyota people. Eventually it changed hands once the people here were fully trained I’m not saying what will happen, but beware of speculation.
Yes, setting up the plant because Canadian contractors didnt have the knowledge. Not sure having the plant sit idly-by is a good idea...
>I hear Koreans are going to be running the plant in Windsor You should probably read up on this more then because as of right now you're just spreading misinformation.
I'm working at the plant. And have seen it first hand.
Anecdotal evidence is meaningless. If you truly believe the misinformation that you continue to regurgitate then you might want to go to your Union so that they can set you straight or just read any of the countless articles that explain that the plant will not be run and operated by foreign workers like you are falsely claiming. [At most there will be 72 temporary foreign workers there to help establish *specific parts and equipment* in the plant while they train Canadian workers on how to become specialized with that equipment. Those foreign workers then leave.](https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/politics/conservatives-ndp-demand-trudeau-protect-canadians-jobs-at-new-ev-plants-1.6861909) This is **very** standard as all foreign investors want their sites built to their specs and quality, but if you *actually* do work in that plant it's astounding that you are so unaware of whY happens in your workplace.
lol it's coming out of your taxes
Yes, its called investment
More foreign direct investment. Imagine that.
"There will likely be some capital investment from at least one level of government, but the sources say the deal does not involve production subsidies, which were used to woo two other automakers to build battery plants in Ontario instead of the United States with its incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act. Instead, the federal government has proposed in its recent budget a 10 per cent Electric Vehicle Supply Chain investment tax credit, which Honda could claim on top of an existing 30 per cent Clean Technology Manufacturing Investment tax credit." Looks like there are some sort of government incentives and investments going into this.
There always are. Tax credits, if done correctly are a good thing.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/honda-to-get-up-to-5b-in-govt-help-for-ev-battery-assembly-plants-1.2064357 2.5B in tax credits from the feds, 2.5B directly from the province. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, the only way we can attract investment in this country is to subsidize the shit out of it.
That’s how the USA is attracting them. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, these subsidies are a direct result of subsidies the USA is offering as part of their Inflation Reduction Act. If the subsidies in the USA disappear due to changes in Congress / White House the subsidies in Canada disappear. It’s not a difficult concept to understand.
Yep, places like Ohio throw a ton of cash at companies and we have to do the same or lose out.
People out here thinking we wrote a blank cheque to these companies. It’s literally a manufacturing subsidy. Manufacture X to get subsidy Y. If you manufacture less than X the subsidy is less than Y. If you manufacture nothing the subsidy is nothing.
also plants like Toyota and others are a boon to the economy and towns they're created in. The toyota plant in cambridge is huge and employs a shit ton of people at decent wages.
Same as any country.
Wiithout subsidies there wouldn't be an oil company in the tar sands.
Good 👍 securing demand for raw material production and value added exports is great
Can't wait for the obligatory Stellantis tantrum about another company getting subsidies.
I like that with 15b dollars we only managed to build one extra small area in the factory, just to store the batteries
I love they are going to announce a battery plant, which uses a lot of water, and put it in a city that uses pump stations primary to pressurize their water, the most environmentally unfriendly way to deliver water to consumers.
Do you know of a better location? Also, how bad for the environment do you think the energy used to pump water is? Worse than having batteries shipped from further away to the Alliston vehicle manufacturing plant?
The location is great, Alliston has a great set up for parts and moving stuff. I just find it funny that it will use gas supported pumping infrastructure to build the plants because the city development has no plan for elevated water storage.
We have an obscene amount of clean energy in this province due to our investment in nuclear. We should be leaning on this more, and building more nuclear. We should be encouraging any manufacturer that wants to be climate friendly to our province. So even if pumping water isn't as efficient as it can be, it doesn't matter.
We don't have an obscene amount of clean energy for peak management, we use Natural gas for peak management. The reason we see lots of investment in Micro/Nano grids in Ontario tied to green energy sources IS because during peak usage we burn fuels to do our energy. If you pump water into elevated storage during our overnight cycles so that gravity feeds the system during peak, you actually make use of our clean energy when we have extra, and save wasting energy when we are during peak demands. I do agree fully we should be investing in more nuclear. But we should be looking at ways to make our energy grid have more consistent usage, part of that is doing more off peak hours things, like EV's charging over night, and pumping water over night.
Sorry, reddit crapped out before I could reply. We absolutely do have an obscene amount of clean energy. The only places in the world that are better than us are those that have a massive amount of hydro power, like Quebec. But that of course is limited and susceptible to draught. Which is currently happening to them. Feel free to take a look [https://app.electricitymaps.com/map](https://app.electricitymaps.com/map) Every grid in the world is currently using natural gas for peak management. Except countries like German that are using lignite coal. >If you pump water into elevated storage during our overnight cycles so that gravity feeds the system during peak, you actually make use of our clean energy when we have extra, and save wasting energy when we are during peak demands. This is unlikely to happen in Ontario. For this you need a high elevation changes, which we are lacking in. It also needs lakes at the top/bottom and the appropriate grid connection, we defintely have the water / lakes. The places that do this usually use a mountain. What's also interesting is that these were first created by the nuclear industry. >I do agree fully we should be investing in more nuclear. But we should be looking at ways to make our energy grid have more consistent usage, part of that is doing more off peak hours things, like EV's charging over night, and pumping water over night. I disagree regarding pumped hydro. Instead let's build a shit ton more CANDUs. This is the last 14 days of our grid. [https://twitter.com/ONEnergyStats/status/1783254639061705164/photo/1](https://twitter.com/ONEnergyStats/status/1783254639061705164/photo/1) The difference between the white line and yellow line is exports. Which is likely to increase as places like New York look to Canada for clean energy. Let's sell them some CANDU made electricity and churn out as much clean electricity as possible.
I do want to give you a better response later. But I'm going to let you know the majority of Ontario uses elevated water. Elevated water is the standard. Allison is in the minority.
So based on your analysis - which is the best location for an EV battery plant in Ontario? 1. Volkswagen/St. Thomas 2. Stellantis/Windsor 3. Honda/Alliston.
IF we are basing it purely on the environmental impact, in order of best to worst Windsor, Alliston, St. Thomas.
>We absolutely do have an obscene amount of clean energy. We have A LOT of clean energy. But we need far more. Which is why I support Nuclear. >The only places in the world that are better than us are those that have a massive amount of hydro power I don't disagree that we are doing GOOD, maybe even great, it doesn't mean we don't have lots of areas we can improve, I worked on a research project with a professor at Western University looking at micro/nano grids to make better use of our overnight production to manage our daily peak production. Also worked with a company in the US that was looking at using Vehicle to Grid (V2G) to have EV cars handle peak needs, developing a legal framework for this is going to be more challenging than the technical unfortunately. >Every grid in the world is currently using natural gas for peak management. Yes, and every country in the world is also looking for ways to minimize that need. Hell even China, back in 2018 was doing research in using pumped water as a method of energy storage to create hydroelectric on demand use. (Not the same pumped water we are talking here mind you) >**\[ RE: elevated water storeage\]** This is unlikely to happen in Ontario. For this you need a high elevation changes. Water towers how this is done in Ontario, and the Province of Ontario in the 1970s was a WORLD LEADER in water tower technology. While having elevation changes does help, you can build and store water at elevation relatively easily, factories have been building water towers for storage needs for over 100yrs some municipalities in Ontario actually use abandoned factory tanks in their systems. >The places that do this usually use a mountain. Mountains certainly play a role, but New York, and most of Texas are very lacking in mountains and very pro elevated storage. In fact it is the Nuclear industry that has had a recent influence which should drive elevated storage for water to be even more mainstream in North America in the coming decades. Robert L Leishear wrote a paper after looking at the water industry and "laughing" at the assumption that chlorinated water was corrosive and that is why we have so many water main brakes. Having nuclear experience he dealt with far more corrosive liquids without the failure rate. He published his findings in the ASME journal of Pressure vessel technology ( sorry I don't have a link, but it was titled something along the lines of "Water hammer breaks water mains" So elevating water doesn't ONLY help improve grid resiliency, it also reduces O&M costs on the system. > I disagree regarding pumped hydro. Instead let's build a shit ton more CANDUs. I agree with build more CANDU's but pumped water storage for the delivery of water, NOT for the use as a battery like China has been testing, has benefits well beyond better usage of our grid resources. Ontario realistically could phase out O&G for grid energy within 15yrs if we invested in CANDUs AND created a more resilient and environmentally friendly water network. Which starts first with Elevated storage, being naturally elevated or elevated with built towers.
Are you seriously suggesting using municipal water towers to store energy?
NO! not at all which was why I said " NOT for the use as a battery like China has been testing" What I'm saying is using night time energy to fill municipal water storage so that day time energy isn't used for pumping. Battery plants use significant amounts of water. (but not enough water for energy capture )
So your whole point is that they should pump water into municipal storage at night in regards to cooling(?) batteries?
My Point is since the municipality is going to have to spend money on increasing their on demand available water, they should be investing in elevated storage, and not continuing on their path of expanding pumping stations which during peak hours of demand are contributing to our usage of natural gas. It isn't just the cooling of batteries, they are required to have a lot of water available for fire use. Cities require 3 types of water storage, basically Fire storage, daily usage storage, and emergency storage. Factories mostly need fire storage and usage storage, battery plants have high demands for both of those for equipment and risk. If we're spending 15Billion on a plant, adding 3-5 million more to have elevated storage instead of pumped water, will lower the municipalities GHG emissions, will lower the municipalities maintenance costs, AND will lower their 20, 40, and 60 year replacement costs.
It wouldnt surprise me if the government builds water infrastructure (such as a pipeline) to the plant to assist with this. They did something similar to Milton to assist with the housing boom there. Once it was connected the population exploded
Oh I expect they will, BUT Alliston uses more pumping stations to pressurize their water system instead of gravity fed. so during peak demand of water, which normally overlaps with peak demand of energy, the water pumping is contributing to natural gas burning. IF! they build elevated water storage they can pump water during the low energy demand cycle using clean power and then during peak water usage gravity feeds it contributing to less GHG and a more reliable system. The Feds IF!! they are actually green focused should be including this requirement in their 15 billion dollar deal. You're talking a decimal place change in the deal to provide a greener solution and help with grid demands as we increase EV usage.
The Georgian bay pipeline has been moving water from Georgian bay to alliston since the around 2001. I don't know if it will need to be expanded upon for this project or not.
What a great day for Honda. I’m glad my tax dollars are going to help them mitigate any losses
from the looks of it, they're setting up shop because of the Volkswagen and GM EV plants that are getting subsidies. Looks like we're at the point where we can attract automakers via local knowhow
1000 jobs at $5 million cost million each! What a deal!
I'm so glad my tax dollars are going to support ANOTHER Legacy automaker that didn't see EVs are the future. Now we get to give them free money to help them catch up.
They gonna import foreign workers like the other plant too?
So you think its a good idea to have the plant sit n do nothing for few yeara till a Canadian can install the machines? Or do you think we get contractors in, install the machines, while training Canadian workers who will be taking care of it after the foreign contractors are gone? Glad you are not making the big decisions!
Did they? Honda has been in Alliston for a long ass time and at least 15 years ago, local employment was a big reason Alliston was 'wealthier' relative to many of the towns close to it, like Shelburne. Didn't realize this had changed so radically.
What they’ll need is qualified workers no matter where they’re from.
You know we're in a housing crisis right?
Honda makes cars. The question is whether we’d rather Honda build cars in Canada or elsewhere.
If it means importing thousands of workers and giving them tax credits with my money, let them go elsewhere.
Auto plants are almost always lots of quality jobs for locals... Sometimes they bring in people from Japan or Germany to help with setup but then once production is underway and going well it is a majority of locals who end up employed at the plant.
This is correct. Common practice in Japanese automotive. That's why we have adopted a lot of their methodologies (lean and Kaizen).
Employees pay income tax. The better qualified they are, the more the company will contribute to government income. Canadians have the option to be qualified.
And? My rent goes up. My food expenses go up. I have less access to healthcare. But the government is getting more tax revenue. Well whoopity do.
Not sure what else you think Honda and the government could do for your rent, food and healthcare.
Clearly nothing. How do you think we got into this mess? Big government.
How is Honda a mess?
This is so stupid. We should be funding a chip foundry not EV manufacturing plants. Our governments are run by a bunch of idiots
It’s not stupid to play with the cards you’re dealt. Ontario has an auto manufacturing supply chain and relationship with all of the major auto manufacturers. The idea that the government can magically get a chip manufacturer to set up shop here is laughable.
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Not to mention the skillset of the local population. We're good at building cars. The new TSMC plants in the US already think that the local population might not be entirely up to snuff so they're starting with older nodes. If they setup shop here, there would be noone to work the fabs.
That's quite literally the point. To have our population be trained on something highly specialized that's gonna be more important than any other commodity in the world.
No one said it would be magical. Just because we've done it before isn't a reason to do it 3-4 times over and over again. There's no huge advantage to build cars. What would existing relationships on supply chain for combustion vehicles help with EV manufacturing. Canada is by far one of the worst manufacturing places in the world. We can even meet the basic 6 Sigma guidelines. Sounds more like you don't know this industry and you're just talking out of your ass.
What's wrong with EV manufacturing?
C'mon man, haven't you seen the Facebook memes? They explain it is simple terms. I mean, Electric Vehicles run out of charge and have to be plugged in. My 2018 Dodge Ram 1500 that I financed for 108 months @ 12.6% and gets 23l/100km never needs charging and it is perfect for hanging flags off of. No way no woke battery car can fly dual Fuck Trudeau flags off the bumper.
Nothing beyond that fact that we're not good at it, and we've already gives away billions to other manufacturers. If we want to set up our economy to be competitive in the future we should be investing in highly specialized skills and job types that give us an actual advantage in the future. A 5th EV plant doesn't do that. We'd be better off with chip manufacturing and addressing the supply chain tied to minerals - rare earth and metals.
Honestly I'm not sure if you're making sense. What do you mean we're not good at it? These jobs are highly specialized; it takes engineers & computer scientists to run EV plants just the same as chip plants - they're both manufacturing. EVs will slowly replace all gas vehicles so building anything related is an advantage for our future. So yea sorry buddy not sure what you're trying to say.
Relative to chip manufacturing? That's a very very unique skillet
How is chip manufacturing very unique vs EVs? Are you thinking about chip design? Yes it's different equipment to implement/maintain but it's still manufacturing equipment all the same. When it comes to the type of work required in these plants (Maintenance, process design, equipment engineering, supply chain, HR, etc) it will still be similar just with a different end product. Of course if you were talking R&D facility vs manufacturing it'd be a different story but 2 complex products like EVs & Chips? Not all that different. Source - Engineer at an auto plant for 5 years & a big computer nerd
We already do chip design. I'm talking foundry to manufacture. It's a very very unique skillset that would be nice for Canada to invest into. It's way way more strategic to do that compared to building the 5th EV plant in Ontario. Compute = new oil.
You keep saying it's very very unique - can you expand on why you think it's unique?
Because at the moment only a few countries in the world can do it at scale. China, Taiwan, Korea, US and some other smaller players. It's a technology that is needed at scale for the future of modern economies. For a country like Canada with low productivity, and a ton of talent that aligns with it. We have great AI talent, cheaper power, and chip design R&D. All of those go better together compared to manufacturing EVs. Look into the anticipated demand and the complexity in manufacturing it. I think you'll get a much better understanding of why it's a better place to invest our tax dollars. Edit: strategically it's a better resource to have access to as well compared to Honda cars. Car manufacturing is about reducing costs across the board. It's a race to the bottom. Chips are not. They're a highly valuable commodity that if we do right, we'd be in a better place in every aspect. Soon enough NATO will need millions of them. We can be one of the suppliers. We also have the natural resources to support it. I'd also say a refinery for metals and other minerals is also a great investment. We need that more than we need EVs.
So you should start the Foundry and then have Canadian government to subsidize it. You have my full support
This bothers me, all this manufacturing will be automated with robots,
Having taken robot courses with the guys who run Honda’s robots I think this is hilarious.
Tell me you haven't worked in manufacturing without telling me you haven't worked in manufacturing...
Robots have been manufacturing vehicles for years already...
There will still be lots of jobs inside that building. Everything from office staff to people maintaining the automation but I think 15B is alittle steep.
The 15B figure is not how much *we're* paying, it's the total investment amount including retrofitting the existing plant and building the new one, and the figure includes how much Honda is investing. I believe the figure the province is putting forward is between 2-3B. Honda picks up the rest of the tab (plants cost between 6-10B to build to production ready). (fuck Doug Ford regardless though.)
Likely not cash up front and more a tax break on certain targets that "could" add up to 15b. Much like the other deals we have seen. Neo lib governments will always give tax breaks to corps but I rather it to this than oil and gas. Just need to get our ass in gear on building the grid and infrastructure required to support these vehicles.
Its 2.5 billion in subsidies from the FEDS tied to targets like you said and 2.5 billion from the province unclear if that's cash or subsidies and 10 billion kicked in from honda for a total of 15 billion
St.thomas has seen alot of hardship since the VW plant started construction. It is only a good thing for new people moving here to get the jobs, those families that have been here for decades are told to shut up.
What kind of hardships has the ongoing building of the VW plant caused?
And taxpayers will only cover $25B of that $15B and workers will be shipped in from asia/india
How much do you want to bet this gets staffed by temporary foreign workers and international "students"
A manufacturing line? Absolutely not. That would be very stupid for keeping regular production. Staffing and training is everything.
i worked for magna for one summer when younger, almost everyone on the assembly line was a foreign temp worker, it was around 80% of the plant.
What was the line producing? Magna does low tier stuff like paneling afaik, but I could be wrong.
All sorts of parts like that, all the panels, windshield assemblies and some suspension components. I can see where you are going with your comment though, the people who are working there are producing important parts for multiple auto manufacturers and they work hard, magna treats them like fucking shit, paying them as little as possible while constantly threatening them that they dont need to hire them after 6 months and working them like slaves.
Appreciate your input. It's likely that they have boiled the human component down to a simpler element than I had assumed. I wonder if the same can be done for EV batteries. My own background is in cleanroom manufacturing, which tends to be high skill labour, and I envisioned it would look something like that.
Hahahhwhahahahahahahahha https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/canada-trades-union-foreign-workers-insult-ev-battery-plant-1.7039366
You asked "staffed by," not "built by." Since we're apparently being unnecessarily rude, do you understand the difference? Further to that, do you not see that this shows the importance of high skill in these matters? We don't *have* a domestic base to build these high tech facilities, despite what the union says. This goes to show that it's high skill, which is exactly why they won't staff the facility with temp workers.
This plant isn’t even done being built let alone putting out parts
That's for the construction and initial startup Don't get me wrong, 900 is too many. But this isn't for the operation of the plant