ElectraMeccanica Vehicles Corp., Canadian electric vehicle (EV) company, broke ground on its first U.S. based assembly facility and engineering technical center planned for Mesa. It’s the third groundbreaking for an EV manufacturing facility in Arizona since 2019.
“Today marks a momentous occasion for our company,” Paul Rivera, the company’s CEO, said in a statement. Rivera added that the new plant and technical center will be a “showcase” for ElectraMeccanica.
The 235,000 square foot facility will sit on a 18-acre stretch of land by the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. The assembly plant will provide a spact to produce the SOLO, the company’s three-wheeled, bite size flagship EV. The site’s multiple labs will support vehicle, chassis and power electronics testing.
ElectraMeccanica has invested more than $35 million in this project, which is expected to be completed in Spring 2021. The plant will potentially bring at least 500 new jobs to Arizona and positively impact the local and state economy.
ElectraMeccanica’s Mesa location is part of a bigger expansion project the company has planned.
The SOLO is gaining attention from both consumers and commercial fleet and utility companies. ElectraMeccanica is making big claims on the benefits of their EV. The company says it’s working to make sure that the SOLO will address the Greater Phoenix traffic issues and is also planning to facilitate a future pilot SOLO share program.
Arizona is becoming a major EV manufacturing hub, with Lucid Motors and Nikola Motor Company both building assembly facilities in Casa Grande. Additionally, UACJ Whitehall has announced a new plant in Flagstaff that will produce EV parts and Li-Cycle, a lithium-ion battery recycling company, is coming to Gilbert.
Mesa is also seeing big growth in the tech industry. The city already has the Apple Mesa Data Center and Amazon has announced another distribution center to be built north of the Eastmark community, also near the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.