When the federal and Ontario governments started hinting final fall at imminent investments in Canada’s electric-vehicle battery provide chain, I used to be greater than a bit skeptical.

Canada’s potential for internet hosting its personal battery ecosystem performed effectively in ministerial speeches. However after 20 years of sluggish decline within the nation’s auto-manufacturing sector, it wasn’t the primary set of speaking factors that governments dreamed as much as attempt to reignite the trade.

Now, nonetheless — as pledges, guarantees and billions of {dollars} in battery provider and automaker spending testify — Canada is pitching company actors a compelling promote sheet, mixing the promise of U.S. market entry with raw-material provide, a powerful environmental file and authorities assist.

Because the auto sector enters uncharted territory, authorities has been “looking for one thing to hold their hat on,” mentioned Sam Fiorani vice-president of worldwide automobile forecasting at U.S.-based AutoForecast Options (AFS). Thus far, he mentioned, the battery-heavy technique helps Canada “keep related.”

On Aug. 23, Volkswagen Group and Mercedes-Benz Group signed memorandums of understanding with the Authorities Canada as a approach to safe entry to much-needed minerals similar to nickel, cobalt and lithium for battery manufacturing.

However much more concretely, $1.5-billion dedication in July from Belgium’s Umicore to construct an EV battery supplies plant close to Kingston, Ont., is an instance of how Canadian financial improvement groups have flipped the script on 20 years of automotive attrition.

Authorities narratives concerning the power of mixing Canada’s uncooked supplies with its advanced-manufacturing base are resonating with trade as a result of an built-in North American provide chain is what the automotive trade wants, mentioned Conrad Layson, senior alternative-propulsion analyst at AFS.

“That’s what I believe Canada actually brings to the desk,” he mentioned. “It’s the flexibility to carry [raw materials] out of the filth and into your automobile.”

The forecasting agency expects extra of the availability chain to fall into place as electrification advances.

Fiorani pointed to Honda’s and Toyota’s meeting operations in Ontario — the place present manufacturing covers gasoline and hybrid autos, however not battery-electrics — as having potential. Basic Motors’ Oshawa Meeting Plant, which builds gasoline and diesel pickups, is one other instance.

“When these crops convert over to EVs,” Fiorani mentioned, the engine crops that assist them shall be repurposed for battery manufacturing or their workforces shifted to different regional battery websites. GM’s St. Catharines Propulsion Plant, which builds V-6 and V-8 engines, is one instance of a web site that would sometime construct batteries, he mentioned.

“All these crops are going to need to have one thing to construct sooner or later.”

As if Canada’s burgeoning EV battery provide chain wanted one other shot within the arm, a dramatic, proposed shift in U.S. auto coverage might lend additional help.

Eight months after U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin reduce the legs out from beneath President Joe Biden’s proposed electric-vehicle tax credit score, the West Virginian and his Democratic colleague from New York state, Sen. Chuck Schumer, launched a rewritten model of the laws on July 27. If handed, it could supply U.S. shoppers incentives of as much as US $7,500 for EVs.

The earlier iteration supplied rebates for U.S.-built autos, which might have ended the Canadian EV trade earlier than it even acquired off the bottom. However the newest laws takes a North America method, giving Canadian minerals and battery parts favoured standing.

With the spectre of U.S. protectionism receding and Canada’s battery provide chain on a roll, for the primary time in a very long time, the way forward for Canadian automotive appears assured.