In October 2023, Ontario’s minister of economic development stood in Queen’s Park to proclaim the success of his government’s multi-billion-dollar electric vehicle strategy.
“Well, just think about where we were five years ago,” Vic Fedeli told assembled MPPs. “We had an auto sector that was failing, no plans for EV production. But under the leadership of Premier Ford, we have a plan.”
At the time, Fedeli, Premier Doug Ford and then-prime minister Justin Trudeau had been on a tour of Ontario making expensive financial promises, in an effort to rev up a fledgling electric vehicle supply chain.
The Ford government promised $2.5 billion to Honda for an overhaul of its Alliston, Ont., plant to focus on electric vehicles. Another $425 million was pledged to Umicore for a battery plant.
Ford Motor was offered $295 million in construction and other support from Ontario to retool its Oakville assembly line, while Stellantis was to receive $513 million for construction, along with billions more for a battery plant project.
“It’s called Driving Prosperity, and it’s a plan to make Ontario the EV global centre,” Fedeli continued at Queen’s Park.
“We started with all the current automakers — success. We then attracted two major battery manufacturers — success. Now, after $27 billion of investment, we’re working on all of the major supply chain.”
Less than three years later, however, the majority of the investments Fedeli, Ford and Trudeau unveiled are in flux — and the federal government says it is launching a new auto task force, with Ontario’s support.
A lack of uptake for electric vehicles across North America, coupled with the introduction of tariffs on Canadian vehicles by United States President Donald Trump, has shaken confidence across the sector, according to industry stakeholders, which, in turn, sidelined or scrubbed planned projects altogether.
“What has happened is a new U.S. administration has dramatically pulled back on a number of the support for electrification [former] president [Joe] Biden had put in place,” said Brian Kingston, president and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association.
“That led to a collapse in EV sales and demand across North America. You add to that tariffs and other supply chain pressures and this transition to electrification is occurring far slower than anticipated.”
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The cracks started to show even before Trump’s tariffs. Back in 2024, the Ford Motor Company announced it was delaying its plans to pivot its Oakville assembly line to electric vehicles. In the short-term, it is planning to build a gas-powered vehicle there instead.
During the summer of 2024, Umicore suspended its plans to construct a battery plant in eastern Ontario. Then, in the spring of 2025, Honda announced it would “postpone” its plan for $15 billion in Ontario electric vehicle investments.
Those pauses and suspensions were only the beginning. General Motors cancelled the production of an electric delivery van in Ingersoll, Ont., and scrapped a shift at its Oshawa facility.
Stellantis relocated a vehicle assembly line from Brampton, Ont., to the United States and sold its stake in an LG-led battery facility, which will no longer focus exclusively on producing batteries for electric vehicles.
Finally, at the beginning of the month, the federal government unveiled a “new strategy” for the country’s auto industry.
Ian Lee from Carleton University said the change in direction — to focus on electric vehicle incentives for buyers, instead of mandates and construction support — was an acknowledgement that the previous, Ontario-led plan hadn’t worked.
“I believe it was a failure,” he said. “They were saying, we’re going to give subsidies to the companies, they never once did anything to make the market more attractive for the millions who wanted to buy an electric car between $25,000 and $40,000.”
Ontario’s pitch to vehicle manufacturers who invested in the province always revolved around access to critical minerals in the Ring of Fire region of the north. That’s an area it is currently trying to build a road to make mining projects and extraction easier and quicker.
Lee said the critical minerals part of Ontario’s strategy would likely stand the test of time — even if the auto plan does not.
“I think that’s going to go forward, car industry or no car industry,” he said.
Fedeli’s office insisted Ontario’s strategy had neither failed nor been abandoned.
“Ontario’s approach has not changed: we are going to continue to do everything to protect and strengthen the province’s auto sector that employs 100,000 workers,” a spokesperson told Global News.
“That is how we have been able to land $46 billion in new auto investment since 2018, and it’s how we’ll attract more job-creating auto investments in the years ahead.”
Kingston said while the strategy may have slowed, it was still on course to yield results.
“It’s just been delayed and pushed back further,” he said.
“At the end of the day, auto makers have to respond to the market. The expectation was the market was moving aggressively toward electrification. That hasn’t happened. So they’ve had to adjust their plans accordingly. That doesn’t mean the plan’s a failure, it just means the plan is going from short-term to long-term.”
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
