The forklift, that vehicle with a pronged device in front for lifting heavy loads that’s found mostly in dingy warehouses and out-of-the-way loading docks, rarely enters the conversation about how Canada can grab a coveted piece of the rapidly growing battery-powered electric vehicle market.
Yet earlier this month, Mississauga-based Stromcore Energy Inc., which assembles lithium-ion batteries for forklifts at a modest plant in Ontario, announced preliminary plans to build what could be, if successful, Canada’s first large scale lithium-ion battery cell factory.
The announcement comes after the federal Liberals set aside billions of dollars to help Canada’s automotive industry, which accounts for nearly a quarter of the country’s manufacturing trade, pivot so that 100 per cent of the new light-duty cars and passenger trucks are zero-emission vehicles by 2035.
So far, however, establishing a factory in Canada that produces lithium-ion batteries — which would replace the engine as the critical component in most zero-emission vehicles — has eluded business leaders and politicians’ best efforts.