Electric Vehicle Parts Fuel Explosion of Business for Atlantic Canada Company

Pat Ryan’s recent advancements in the electric vehicle aftermarket are quietly fueling the expansion of his factory in an industrial park on the outskirts of Halifax, far from the automotive heartland of Canada.

“Being involved in this early stage is pretty great,” the 60-year-old president of Neocon International said in a recent interview on the site of the specialty plastics company he founded 27 years ago.

In recent years, the company, whose name is an abbreviation for “new concepts”, has been successfully bidding for the manufacture of cargo protection, floor liners and galvanized parts such as bumper protectors for the next generation of electric vehicles.

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

Canada’s auto factories and auto parts manufacturers have traditionally been focused on Ontario, with some manufacturing groups in Quebec, Manitoba, and British Columbia. For Ryan and a handful of other Atlantic Canadian companies and researchers, the rising tide of the electric vehicle sector is 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 including the Nissan Ariya and the Cadillac Lyric. Last year, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, its engineering staff won tenders to make plastic floors for the Amazon delivery vans to be made by Rivian Automotive.

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

Ryan makes no secret of his excitement about walking downstairs with the latest industry entrant.

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

Previous hopes in the region for vehicle and parts manufacturing, the most famous of the short-lived Bricklin sports cars assembled in Saint John, NB, in the 1970s, were dashed. But this time, there is the world’s leading science to back East Coast entrepreneurs.

Across town from Ryan’s plant, Professor Jeff Dahn’s battery lab on the third floor of Dalhousie University’s Georgian-style physics building has been generating patents and spun off from a listed company. bag.

Dahn, 64, is known for developing new battery chemistries for Tesla and creating kits that estimate the life of the lithium-ion batteries that are currently at the core of the electric vehicle revolution. His laboratory developed methods to measure small amounts of degradation in batteries as they are charged and recharged, allowing the facility to provide faster estimates of their longevity than traditional test systems.

“What we are trying to do is improve lithium-ion batteries and develop next-generation technology that did not yet exist,” he said during an interview in his laboratory.

Chris Burns, a Dahn lab graduate, founded the publicly traded Novonix company in Halifax, which has expanded from eight employees testing lithium-ion batteries and their components to a research facility with approximately 55 staff members in Halifax and a similar number. in the U.S.

In 2017, Novonix began testing the potential shelf life of synthetic graphite materials as a potential electrode in batteries, leading to the creation of a division in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he said during a recent interview. This division is increasing the mass production of the material, with the goal of hiring 300 workers and producing 150,000 tons annually by 2030.

“The challenge before us is affordability and longevity … We need to make sure the battery lasts while the vehicle is in use,” Burns said.

Burns said he chose to locate the 28,000-square-foot graphite production facility in Tennessee because of the state’s low-cost and renewable electricity, a large workforce, proximity to manufacturers and suppliers, and strong incentives from the state government. United.

“It will be a challenge for Nova Scotia to attract significant manufacturing opportunities, but we have great opportunities to continue developing technologies that … can be scaled up elsewhere,” he said.

David Swan, a Tatamagouche, NS-based engineer who worked on early versions of electric vehicle batteries, said the challenge for aftermarket manufacturers anywhere in North America is the extremely competitive nature of automakers. . He said he has observed that they will not hesitate to shift their loyalty to new parts suppliers if costs are lower.

“What starts out as a good relationship turns into a very competitive one,” he said. “It is not an easy industry to live in.”

Still, Ryan sees opportunities for innovative companies to meet EV requirements for lighter parts, while an expanding interior capacity of cars allows his firm to come up with more flooring and storage proposals.

For example, the floor mat you are making for the Nissan Ariya weighs about 60 percent of the weight of a traditional version of the product.

“Are we really going to build EVs in Halifax? It’s probably a bit of a stretch,” he said. “But are we going to have a good solid opportunity to supply the next generation of electric vehicles? Why not?”

This Canadian Press report was first published on December 14, 2021.