Automotive News Canada - October 2016 - 10

* OCTOBER 2016

Hello to Solo

Ford 'small-car' move to Mexico
is old news for Canadian suppliers
But the term "small
car" also means that
the Fusion sedan and
C-Max wagon will leave
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NEWS EDITOR

160-kilometre range for less than $20,000
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year. P H O T O : S T E V E M E R T L

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VA N C O U V E R C O R R E S P O N D E N T

ELECTRA MECCANICA
officially debuted its Solo single-seater commuter car EV
at the Vancouver Luxury and
Supercar Weekend, Sept. 9. The
three-wheeled runabout has a
claimed top speed of 130 km/h,
a 160-kilometres range and carries a $19,888 asking price.

The car unveiled at a
media preview is destined
for crash-testing, partner and
chief engineer Henry Reisner
said, in order to be certified
for Canadian roads. Trikes are
exempted in the U.S., where
along with other foreign markets the company expects to sell
most of its production.
Electra Meccanica CEO
Jerry Kroll said more than 200
customers have put down a $250

refundable deposit and the company has had more than 20,000
inquiries. Initial production
from its New Westminster, B.C.,
facility should start reaching
customers before the end of the
year.
Kroll has hopes of eventually
reaching 100,000 annual production from plants in Asia, and
has asked the federal government for assistance to ramp up
production in Canada. - ANC

FORD MOTOR CO.'S
confirmation Sept. 14 that it
will move all of its U.S. smallcar production to Mexico
comes as no surprise to
Canadian parts manufacturers who supply the plant that
builds the Ford Fusion and
C-Max in Michigan.
The announcement is old
news to them, says Flavio Volpe,
the president of the Automobile
Parts Manufacturers
Association of Canada.
The development was "long
telegraphed and not unexpected," Volpe told Automotive
News Canada.
"Suppliers on these lines
usually get an opportunity to
re-bid the business if it's been
relocated," and on the new
product promised for the
existing plant, he said.
Ford Motor Co. CEO
Mark Fields confirmed
the long-expected move
at an event attended by
Wall Street analysts and investors.

He said the Michigan
Assembly Plant in Wayne,
a suburb of Detroit, will get
new, as yet unnamed products
to compensate for the loss of
small-vehicle production, likely larger and more profitable
truck-based vehicles that are in
high demand all across North
America. The United Auto
Workers, which represents the
plant workers, signed a contract to that effect last year.
Ford is building a new US
$1.6 billion assembly plant in
San Luis Potosi, Mexico, and is
scheduled to begin producing
the Fusion and C-Max there in
2018. - ANC

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Dealerships sitting on gold mines: their property
By MICHAEL GOETZ
TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

MILTON LAMB
Helping dealers unleash
funds tied up in real estate
ALTHOUGH DEALERSHIP REAL
estate investment trusts (REITs) have
been prevalent in the United
States for more than a decade,
they are relatively new in
Canada.
A REIT purchases the real
estate portion of a dealership
and then leases it back to the
dealership.
"This provides them with
the financial liquidity to
advance their individual strategic objectives, whether it be
succession planning, directly investing in upgrading their dealerships, or to facilitate acquisitions during
this period of industry consolidation,"
says Milton Lamb, CEO of Automotive
Properties REIT, the most prevalent
REIT in Canada and the only publicly
traded one.
"We completed our IPO in July 2015

Milton Lamb
jumped at the
opportunity
to lead the
REIT.

and have been actively trying to raise
(REIT) awareness, as we are the only
Canadian REIT that is focused on acquiring dealership properties."
The Toronto-based REIT's current
portfolio consists of 30 properties, representing 28 automotive brands.
Lamb is a commercial-real-estate veteran with many senior management
positions under his belt.
"When I was approached
with the opportunity to lead
the REIT, I jumped at it."

TAI, GARBOWSKI,
WONG, SHAH
Childhood friends build
online retail platform
"We started Unhaggle.
com based on personal experience shopping for cars and our
belief that the industry was ripe for innovation," says Andrew Tai, one of the four
founders and its current CEO.
As the company name implies, it was
targeted at consumers who wanted to
avoid the haggling portion of the car-buying process. It provides factory invoice
price reports and it finds the lowest price
offer by sending out requests on behalf of
the consumer to Unhaggle's network of
dealerships.
The Toronto-based company has
grown far beyond the original vision,
says Tai, adding that its namesake website at Unhaggle.com is now just one
small part of the business.
For example, Unhaggle is now in
the process in launching its "next-generation" retail platform called
MotoCommerce, which Tai says will
enable an entire vehicle purchase without the customer leaving their computer.
The company actually operates two
different business segments: Consumer

platforms; and Enterprise
platforms, the latter recently
rebranded to MotoInsight.
According to Radek
Garbowski, the company's
COO, MotoInsight provides
dealers, software companies, lenders and insurance
companies data and technology solutions "to better
engage consumers, acquire
customers and stay on top
of market trends."
Not bad for such a young
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company started by four
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childhood friends, who still
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NICOLE LEFEBVRE

No experience? No problem,
she just fought her way in
After an unrewarding experience in
restaurant management, Nicole Lefebvre
thought a dealership service position
would be an agreeable change.
But with no automotive experience,
dealerships weren't interested.

"I just started harassing all the local dealerships until someone
helped me out and took
me on," she said.
She was "shell
shocked" for the first
six months as a service advisor, but eventually came to realize
she loved the work and
wanted to progress to
management.
"It was a challenge
I gave myself. I Didn't
know how long it would
take, but I knew I wanted to get there."
The challenge was
fulfilled about two years ago when
she was appointed service manager at
Oakwood Nissan in Saskatoon, Sask.
There are few female service managers in the business. She notes persistence
and a thick skin are necessary to get
though some trying times.
"But it has been totally worth it."
- ANC

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http://www.Unhaggle.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - October 2016