INAUGURATION OF LION ELECTRIC BATTERY MANUFACTURING PLANT

By Isabelle Havasy

Lion Electric has officially inaugurated its new lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. On April 17th, stakeholders of the company, actors of the transportation electrification ecosystem in North America, as well as Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, and Benoît Charrette, Minister of Environment, Climate Change Control, Wildlife and Parks, were gathered to celebrate this milestone event.

“This official opening marks the culmination of several years of effort, which now allows us to control the manufacturing and integration of one of the fundamental components of electric vehicle production and the electrification of transportation: the battery. With this new facility, Lion will be able to reaffirm its role as a leader in the electrification of the transportation ecosystem in Canada and the United States,” said Marc Bédard, president and founder, Lion Electric.

Built on the site of the Aérocité Internationale de Mirabel (YMX), the 175,000-square-foot facility will supply power to EVs assembled by Lion at its plants in Saint-Jérôme, Québec and Joliet, Illinois.

Within the first half of 2023, the company should obtain its first battery pack model final certification. Thereafter, it plans to gradually ramp up production to a full capacity of five gigawatt hours, which allows Lion to electrify approximately 14,000 electric buses and trucks on an annual basis.