GM Starts BrightDrop Van Production at Canada’s First EV Plant
General Motors on Monday celebrated the start of electric van production in Ingersoll, Ontario with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford in attendance.
This marks the opening of the first full-scale EV manufacturing plant in the country.
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The automaker invested more than $1 billion with the support from both governments to convert the old CAMI plant, which stopped building Chevrolet Equinox compact SUVs last April. In just seven months, the team installed entirely new production equipment covering 2 million square feet.
The site is now the new global manufacturing home for GM’s electric cargo vans, which are sold under the new BrightDrop brand. The first units of the full-size Zevo 600 rolled off the line on Monday.
International shipping and logistics giant DHL Express is BrightDrop’s first customer in Canada. It plans to add Zevo electric delivery vans to its fleet starting early in 2023.
GM is now in a position to directly rival Ford’s E-Transit, which launched in Canada several months ago. Ram and Mercedes-Benz will strike back with electric variants of their full-size ProMaster and Sprinter, respectively, in the near future.
A second BrightDrop model, the compact-sized Zevo 400, will join the Zevo 600 at some point in 2023, with telecommunications company Verizon lined up to take delivery of the first units. Both are built on GM’s Ultium platform and promise an estimated range or about 400 km.