Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has revealed how much it spent readying a Canadian factory for its new minivan line.

FCA Canada president and CEO Reid Bigland told Reuters the automaker had spent CAD$3.7bn since September 2014 and created 1,200 jobs to develop and build the Pacifica minivan (reviving a name once used for a Chrysler crossover) and a hybrid variant. The line is in pilot production now in Windsor, Ontario. The Pacifica project took Fiat Chrysler employment in Canada to just over 11,000, Bigland said.

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He told Reuters: "We should start to ship them out to our dealers in Canada and the United States in May of this year, give or take."

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