No impact and no worry: Auto analysts weigh-in on European company decision to pause building an EV battery factory in Ontario

Umicore has decided to reassess their battery materials business, citing “significant worsening of the EV market”.

“Customers’ demand projections for our battery materials have steeply declined recently,” a company spokesperson wrote in a statement to CTV News.

They plan to reveal their decision about the Ontario factory in quarter one of next year.

Stellantis officials confirmed to CTV News Umicore is not a supplier and the decision will not impact construction and production of Windsor’s NextStar battery plant.

Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association said Umicore’s factory in Ontario was slated to provide battery materials to a factory in South Carolina who’s sole customer was BMW.

“BMW has done very well,” Volpe said. “They delivered 34 per cent more battery electric vehicles than they did the year before.”

Volpe says however, the Umicore decision is just another example of how tough the transition is proving to be for many automakers.

“They don't have what the Chinese have, which is here's a bucket of cash just get set up,” Volpe said. “There's dozens of Chinese automakers and battery makers that don't have to worry about the things we worry about in the west. What we worry about in the west is will the customers be there? The Chinese say ‘the customer will buy what we sell’.”

Brendan Sweeney, with the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing doesn’t see any immediate concerns for the fate of Windsor’s electric battery factory.

“It’s a transition. It’s not an overnight thing,” said Sweeney. “This is going to happen over the next 10 to 20 years.”

He believes once batteries start rolling off the line in Windsor, the company will ramp up production for factories in Ontario, Michigan and Ohio.