The MPP for Windsor-Tecumseh says he's so delighted to see that the hiring process for the NextStar Energy electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor has begun.
Speaking on AM800's The Shift, Andrew Dowie is reacting to the news that the company has officially begun the first phase of hiring with the recruitment of the 130-person NextStar Energy launch team.
The launch team includes 30 professional staff to grow business operations, as well as 100 production engineers and technicians.
The engineers and technicians will be sent for training to learn how to operate a large-scale lithium-ion battery plant and be able to train the thousands of additional employees.
The training will take place at the LG Energy Solution battery plant in Wroclaw, Poland, and Dowie says the plant there would 'knock our socks off'.
He says he's hoping the Windsor plant will be better than anywhere around the world.
"We're going to do even better, we're going to have the next generation beyond that right here in Windsor-Essex. And so, the 130 new jobs are going to launch that plant, they're going to be trained in the current generation, and then they'll be unveiling the next generation. So, we're going to have the best of all world here, right here in our community."
Dowie says the technology in this facility will be second to none.
"I'm just so delighted to see the 130 staff being brought on board right now with the opening of the job world. They're going to be learning what there is to learn, and setting us on the right path, and it's just going to be such an incredible career to be part of the inaugural workforce at the NextStar Energy plant."
He says the goal is to create an end-to-end EV supply chain across the province.
"They have 2,500 jobs just here in Windsor, 130 of the ones that are announced, but we're going to need people from across Ontario to be part of the economy, not just to support this plant but to support all the plants."
NextStar Energy is the first large scale, electric vehicle battery plant in Canada with production planned to launch in 2024.
NextStar Energy is one of eight battery plants that LG Energy has secured in North America in response to its growing EV market.
The plant aims to have an annual production capacity in excess of 45 gigawatt hours, and would create an estimated 2,500 new jobs in the Windsor region.
-with files from AM800's The Shift