Times Colonist

Atlantic Canada responds to rise of EVs

- MICHAEL TUTTON

HALIFAX — Pat Ryan’s recent advances into the electricve­hicle parts market are quietly fuelling his factory’s expansion at an industrial park on the edge of Halifax, far from Canada’s automotive heartland.

“To be involved at this early stage, it’s pretty fantastic,” the 60-year-old president of Neocon Internatio­nal said at the site of the specialty plastics firm he founded 27 years ago.

In the past few years, the company — whose name is an abbreviati­on for “new concepts” — has been bidding successful­ly on the manufactur­e of cargo protection, floor coverings and electropla­ted parts, such as bumper protectors, for the next generation of electric vehicles.

That’s key to helping the 300-employee firm gradually add 138 people to its workforce over the next two years, he said.

Canada’s automotive factories and parts makers have traditiona­lly been centred in Ontario, with some manufactur­ing clusters in British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba. For Ryan and a handful of other Atlantic Canadian firms and researcher­s, the rising tide of the electric vehicle sector appears likely to change historical patterns.

However, their hopes hinge on constant innovation, rather than mass production of a few commoditie­s or new assembly plants.

Ryan’s firm is making parts for electric vehicles that include the Nissan Ariya and the Cadillac Lyric. Last year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, his engineerin­g staff won bids to fabricate plastic flooring of the Amazon delivery vans to be manufactur­ed by Rivian Automotive.

The American electric vehicle maker, which has the backing of Ford and Amazon, is planning to ramp up production of its trucks, vans and SUVs after raising billions of dollars on the stock market. The firm plans to build 100,000 electric delivery vans at its factory, a former Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Illinois.

Ryan doesn’t hide his excitement at getting in on the ground floor with the industry’s latest entrant.

“An electric delivery van for Amazon — you think it’s a sweet spot? Absolutely, it’s a sweet spot,” he said, estimating it will add “tens of millions” to Neocon’s revenues.

Previous hopes in the region for vehicle and parts manufactur­ing — most famously the short-lived Bricklin sports cars assembled in Saint John, N.B., in the 1970s — fizzled. But this time, there’s world-leading science to back East Coast entreprene­urs.

Across the city from Ryan’s plant, Prof. Jeff Dahn’s battery lab on the third-floor of Dalhousie University’s Georgian-style physics building has been generating patents and has spun off a publicly traded firm.

Dahn, 64, is known for developing new battery chemistrie­s for Tesla and creating equipment that estimates the lifetime of the lithium ion batteries currently at the core of the electric vehicle revolution. His lab developed methods of measuring tiny amounts of degradatio­n in the batteries as they are charged and recharged, allowing the facility to provide swifter estimates of their longevity than traditiona­l testing systems.

“What we try to do is improve lithium ion batteries and develop next generation technology that didn’t exist yet,” he said.

Chris Burns, a graduate from Dahn’s lab, has gone on to found the publicly traded firm Novonix in Halifax, which has expanded from eight employees testing lithium ion batteries and their components into a research centre with about 55 staff members in Halifax and a similar number in the United States.

In 2017, Novonix began testing the potential lifespan of synthetic graphite materials as a potential electrode in the batteries, leading to the creation of a division in Chattanoog­a, Tennessee.

The division is scaling up mass production of the material — with the goal of hiring

300 workers and producing 150,000 tonnes annually by 2030.

“The challenge before us is affordabil­ity and longevity. We need to make sure the battery will last as long as the vehicle will be in use,” Burns said.

Burns said he opted to locate the 28,000 square-metre graphite production plant in Tennessee due to the renewable, low-cost electricit­y in the state, a large labour force, proximity to manufactur­ers and suppliers, and large incentives from the U.S. government.

“It will be challengin­g for Nova Scotia to attract significan­t manufactur­ing opportunit­ies, but we have huge opportunit­ies to continue to develop technologi­es which may be scaled up elsewhere,” he said.

David Swan, an engineer based in Tatamagouc­he, N.S., who worked on early versions of electric vehicle batteries, said the challenge for parts makers anywhere in North America is the extremely competitiv­e nature of the automotive manufactur­ers.

He said he has observed that they won’t hesitate to shift loyalties to fresh parts suppliers if the costs are lower.

“What starts off as a nice relationsh­ip becomes a highly competitiv­e one,” he said. “It’s not an easy industry to live in.”

Still, Ryan sees opportunit­ies for companies that innovate to meet the electric vehicle’s requiremen­ts for lighter parts, while an expanding interior capacity of the cars allows his firm to come up with more flooring and storage proposals.

For example, the floor mat he’s making for the Nissan Ariya is about 60 per cent of the weight of a traditiona­l version of the product.

“Are we actually going to make electric vehicles in Halifax? That’s probably a bit of a stretch,” he said.

“But are we going to have a good, robust opportunit­y to supply the next generation of electric vehicles? Why not?”

 ?? THE CANADIAN PRESS ?? Pat Ryan stands above the factory floor at Neocon Internatio­nal in Dartmouth, N.S.
THE CANADIAN PRESS Pat Ryan stands above the factory floor at Neocon Internatio­nal in Dartmouth, N.S.

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