As any current (or hopeful) Canadian EV drivers surely know, the creation of an integrated EV battery supply chain across Canada has been a long time coming. Finally, with the help of a coalition of leaders in the clean transportation space, that supply chain is coming to life.
October 1st marked the launch of Accelerate, a 5-year national alliance group of 21 core members dedicated to bringing together key players across Canada — from mining to mobility, R&D to commercialization, vehicle assembly to infrastructure — to organize and align Canada’s ZEV supply chain to ensure its growth and success.Accelerate notes that, to keep pushing the Canadian ZEV supply chain forward, the industry requires industrial solutions and an influx of government support.
With this in mind, Accelerate hopes to enable collaboration and investments into the Canadian ZEV industry, create a talent pipeline, promote the economic benefits of the supply chain, and advocate for policy instruments from federal and provincial governments to support the cause. Accelerate members all share a common goal to “harness the momentum of a fragmented industry to form an industrial strategy that will make Canada competitive on the global stage for batteries.”
Moe Kabbara, interim executive director at Accelerate
Following the official launch, Accelerate plans to spend the next 14 months focused on deliberate, grassroots planning while working to build their membership. The alliance also shares that they have already had talks with alliances from other parts of the world, in order to learn about best practices and identify opportunities for collaboration.
Moe Kabbara, interim executive director at Accelerate shares, “What we really want this alliance to be is a forum where companies come together to align on policy advocacy, on developing an industrial roadmap for the country, on developing partnerships. Members can join their voices, ally together and contribute to ensuring that policies and also partnerships are being developed to benefit the industry as a whole.”
