Canada’s battery factory Nextstar aims to start production next month. However, it will not be manufacturing electric vehicle batteries initially, because that market is down. Instead, it will produce energy storage batteries to fill the gap. We welcome Nextstar to our world of batteries, and we wish them every success going forward.
Canada’s EV Battery Market Is Down But We Press On
The $5 billion Nextstar battery factory in Windsor, Ontario is Canada’s first large scale, lithium-ion battery production plant. Thus far, the Federal and Ontario governments may have provided as much as $1 billion support.
The battery factory is a joint initiative involving multinational automaker Stellantis NV, and South Korea’s LG Energy Solution Ltd. After three years in construction, the 4.23-million-square-foot facility already employs 1,000 people.
“Expanding into the growing market for energy storage production will keep the plant busy until EV sales pick up again,” Danies Lee, chief executive of Nextstar believes.
Canada’s Mega Battery Factory Ready to Roll
The parent company Nextstar Energy received an occupancy permit in September 2025, marking the official end of the construction phase. During that period, over 9,000 Canadian trades workers contributed more than 8.4 million work hours.
The vast battery factory, spanning 4.23 million square-feet, is a state-of-the-art mega manufacturing plant. It has capacity to build up to 49.5 gigawatt-hours of energy storage every year. Core processes include electrode production, cell formation and completion, and battery module assembly.
Work began on the site in 2022, and soon ramped up with impressive speed. The site houses eleven buildings in its close-to-completion phase. These structures include two main manufacturing facilities (cell and module) and nine support buildings including a recycling center and a safety testing laboratory.
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