A Winnipeg-based bus manufacturer is expanding production in Manitoba’s capital to allow it to make electric buses in Canada from start to finish, with the help of $38 million in new funding from the federal and federal governments. provincial.

The funding will allow New Flyer, a subsidiary of multinational company NFI Group, to manufacture buses entirely in Winnipeg, president and CEO Paul Soubry said Friday.

The company has a multibillion-dollar bus order book, at a time when it has less competition in the market, Soubry said, noting that five of its competitors disappeared when demand for buses collapsed after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The reason we needed and asked for support from the federal government and the province is because we have just been through financial hell. We have a very indebted balance sheet,” he said at a news conference Friday.

“So if we were to try to do all this on our own, we would have to wait a few years – and are we missing the window?”

NFI survived the pandemic economic crisis thanks to $110 million in federal and provincial loans, of which $25 million was repaid.

It also made workforce reductions of about 2,500 positions, all but about 500 of which were rehired, Soubry said.

The new expansion of the Winnipeg facility, which will cost between $70 million and $80 million, will allow the company to build four to six buses per week in Canada by the time it is fully completed in 2027.

It is being helped by a new federal loan of $15 million, as well as a provincial capital contribution of $10 million and an interest waiver of $13.4 million on a existing provincial loan of $50 millionSoubry said.

Currently, the company builds bus shells in Winnipeg and then finishes the buses at its facility in Alabama. The company will lease new space where it will complete transit buses, including installing electric battery chargers and hydrogen fueling, said Jennifer McNeill, director of NFI.

Winnipeg bus maker receives government funding boost to increase electric bus production

Winnipeg-based bus maker New Flyer is expanding production in Manitoba’s capital to make electric buses in Canada, from start to finish, with the help of $38 million in new government funding federal and provincial.

Although conventional buses still make up the bulk of the company’s production, that will change, Soubry said.

“We’re creating platforms or vehicles where we can put different propulsion systems, but we’ll also build them on the same production lines, so that as the world changes, as the product changes, as propulsions change, we adapt,” he says.

The expansion will create about 250 additional jobs in Winnipeg, Soubry said.

Prime Minister Wab Kinew welcomed the expansion.

“It’s about putting a made in Canada stamp on the buses that take people to work in Winnipeg, in Toronto, in Canadian cities that we love so much,” Kinew said at Friday’s news conference.