Abstract

In September 2024, Cambrian College, located in Sudbury, Ontario, officially opened its Vale Electric Vehicle Lab. Sponsored by Vale Base Metals with a generous $750,000 contribution to the College, this state-of-the-art facility will be the only performance testing lab that is focused on testing electric mining vehicles. The lab will be testing batteries and electric motors to provide data insights to vehicle manufacturers that will then help inform procurement decisions from mining companies such as Vale and Glencore that are adopting EVs in fleet. 

But beyond the Lab's capacity, it is truly a story of community coming together to build a facility that will help play a role in critical minerals and the conversation to green technologies. After securing $1 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and $1 million from the Ontario Research Fund as the seeding funding for the EV Lab, Cambrian was able to secure an additional $2,889,820 from other funders and industry partners.

Some of the chief industry donors included Sandvik who donated $40,000 in cash as well as an electric load, haul, dumper (LHD) valued at $850,000, Glencore donated $200,000 in cash, Vale Base Metals donated $750,000 in cash, Royal Bank of Canada donated $450,000 in cash, Ontario Power Generation donated $100,000 in cash, and Eaton Electric Canada donated $25,000 cash. The additional cash secured ensured that Cambrian was able to build out a lab that industry would use.

While we were only required to find the remaining 20% after CFI and ORF’s contribution, we were able to truly go above and beyond and secure more funding than the original base funding from the two grant applications. This partnership and community engagement project truly speaks to the relevance to the mining industry and the insights we are able to derive from the lab, will provide data to the mining industry that will benefit the sector for years to come.