Invest Windsor Essex, along with its partners, launched the Canadian Automobility Hub on Wednesday.
The hub, located at the St. Clair College Windsor campus, brings together researchers and industry partners to facilitate advancements in electric and zero-emission vehicles.
“The Automobility Hub is the first of its kind in Canada. It offers a suite of resources and services, including a state-of-the-art ramp-up factory, to enable and support a network of innovative entrepreneurs and businesses interested in advancing the market for electric, zero-emission, as well as connected and automated vehicle technology and infrastructure,” said Invest Windsor Essex President and CEO Stephen MacKenzie.
The Canadian Automobility Hub is made up of Automobility Enterprises Inc. and Automobility Research. The enterprises side will focus on small-batch manufacturing and technological advancements in electric motors, fuel cells, and vehicle batteries.
Key private partners include PEM Motion, Windsor Mold Group, and Integris.
“PEM Motion is proud to be one of the anchor private sector partners for the Canadian Automobility Hub. We look forward to working with innovative businesses and entrepreneurs in Windsor-Essex to bring their products to market,” said Christoph Lienemann with PEM Motion.
The hub has the latest machinery and resources necessary to manufacture mobility prototypes. All of these machines will be available for researchers, entrepreneurs, and small start-ups to allow them to industrialize their ideas without having to purchase the equipment first.
"They cannot afford such equipment, it takes a while to buy it also, so we want to off the opportunity to take all the experts here and the equipment and scale up the industrialization for the innovation," said Lienemann.
Both St. Clair College and the University of Windsor are partnering with the facility on the Automobility Research side to advance training and research opportunities. Both facilities plan to ramp-up programming to include the state-of-the art equipment at the facility.