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Underground vehicle manufacturer renames flagship brand

Minecat now becomes Kovatera
kovatera_minecat
Kovatera vehicles are manufactured by Industrial Fabrication, which is based in the Sudbury community of Lively. (Supplied photo)

Industrial Fabrication has rebranded its Minecat vehicles to Kovatera.

The company, which made the announcement on Oct. 7, said the change is part of “an aggressive strategy to grow domestic and international sales.”

Based in the Sudbury community of Lively, Industrial Fabrication manufactures purpose-built utility vehicles for underground mining.

Will Gove, Kovatera’s general manager, said in a news release that the company is focused on expanding into markets in Australia, Mexico, South America, Europe and Eurasia.

“Given our global expansion strategy, new product development and the starting of a new lean manufacturing production line this past January, our management team felt it was time to refresh our brand to reflect these initiatives,” Gove said in the release.

“After an extensive branding exercise, we have landed on a new name that we believe reflects the products we build and is more distinctive for the markets we are expanding into.”

Kovatera takes its name from the word “kova,” a derivative of the Finnish word for “tough,” and “tera,” an abbreviated from of the Latin word for “earth.”

In addition to expanding into new markets, the company said, it’s also in the final engineering and testing stage on a line of electric-powered vehicles.