Automotive News Canada - August 2017 - 27

* AUGUST 2017

Making a roadmap,
without a road
The Senate committee's study
is meant to help governments
at all levels navigate the
autonomous-vehicle revolution,
but the problem is that the
technology is a moving target
By ROBERT BOSTELAAR
O T TAWA C O R R E S P O N D E N T

CANADIAN SENATOR DENNIS DAWSON
likens the emergence of driverless cars,
and their potential as economic and social
game-changers, to the original arrival of the
automobile, with one crucial difference.
"I'm sure they had this debate when they
were talking about the first cars that were
developed 100 years ago. The buggies, the horses, the guy who puts
horseshoes on who will
AUTOMOTIVE NEWS CANADA
lose his job. And that's
AUTONOMOUS
true, and it's going to hapTECHNOLOGY
pen again," says Dawson,
chair of the Senate's transport committee.
"But it's not going to
be a cycle of 40 years. It's
FOCUS ON
going to be a cycle of 40
months."
That furious pace
is adding urgency to a
Senate study of the regulatory and technical
issues surrounding the deployment of connected and automated vehicles, even if no one is
sure when self-driving cars and trucks will land
in Canada, or how they'll work when they get
here.
The goal is a roadmap, if for now drawn in
broad strokes, meant to help federal, provincial
and municipal governments navigate the autonomous revolution.
Between March and June, Dawson's committee heard from more than 40 witnesses representing a who's who of carmaking and technology in Canada.
Among them: Mark Nantais, head of the
Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association;
David Adams, president of Global Automakers
of Canada; and top officials from General
Motors of Canada, Ford of Canada and
BlackBerry.
It heard from university researchers and
consumer advocates, from legal experts and federal Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien.
And it's gone on field trips, most recently to an
autonomous vehicle research centre operated
by BlackBerry subsidiary QNX in Ottawa's tech
suburb of Kanata.
More hearings will take place in September,
says Dawson, with a focus on the social implications of driverless vehicles. The committee
expects to submit a report to federal Transport
Minister Marc Garneau in December.

LEGISLATION

Sheridan Ethier, left, director of engineering
at BlackBerry QNX, shows the company's
technology to senators Terry Mercer, Patricia
Bovey and Dennis Dawson during a visit by
the Senate's transport committee.
( P H O T O : S E N AT E O F C A N A D A )

STEERING CHANGE
PROJECT: Study of the regulatory and technical issues in the deployment of connected and
automated vehicles.
PLAYERS: Senate of Canada standing committee on transport and communications; automakers and high-tech executives;
legal and technical experts.
GOAL: Devise policy and regulatory framework
to ease the transition to driverless cars.
TIMETABLE: Hearings in spring and fall 2017,
report to be submitted to Transport Minister
Marc Garneau in December.
"It is a vast study," says Dawson, pointing to
the potential gains in safety and efficiency, and
the cost to privacy as cars become as knowledgeable as our cellphones about our movements and shopping habits. Jobs too could be
lost as computers and radar supplant the role of
truck and taxi drivers.
And even as cars share information to avoid
collisions and adjust for traffic and weather,
governments will need to work more closely to
coordinate vehicle safety, a federal responsibility, and traffic enforcement and road design,
which come under provincial jurisdiction.
Senate committees rarely get much media
attention, but their efforts can have a major
influence on policy. A notable example is the
2007 report entitled Out of the Shadows at Last,
heralded as a landmark study into mental illness and addiction in Canada.
Nor is the Senate the only legislative body
trying to get ahead of the self-driving juggernaut. In the
United States, the
Senate Commerce
Committee is
drafting regulations meant to
ensure safety of
all road users
while encouragDavid Michelson, a
ing the testing
and deployment University of British
Columbia researcher, says
of autonomous
Canada's resource roads
vehicles.
are an ideal place to develPublic highop autonomous vehicles.
ways are already ( P H O T O : R O B E R T B O S T E L A A R )
serving as laboratories in the United States, but in Canada the
first widespread testing could come on forestry
and mining roads, a witness told Dawson's committee in June.
David Michelson of the University of British
Columbia said private and limited-access
roads offer a huge test-bed for AV development
addressing Canadian geography and weather.
"In British Columbia alone, over 620,000
kilometres of resource roads serve the natural
resources centre, remote communities and recreational sites," said Michelson, co-chair of the
Intelligent Transportation Systems Society of
Canada committee on connected vehicles.
Dawson said his committee will need to continue to monitor autonomous development after
it submits its report because of the certainty that new technology will emerge to disrupt
transportation, just as electric-car maker Tesla
did.
"We know very well that by the following
year, one of the big players, whether it's Google
or Amazon or somebody we don't know, will be
coming out with some prototype of one kind or
another that will shake the foundations of the
industry once again." - ANC

GM's 22% increase
heads off July sales
declines at Ford, FCA

Hot Canadian
market defies
description;
two-million-unit
record in sight
By JEREMY SINEK

TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

THERE'S STILL TIME FOR
the wheels to fall off, but
Canada's auto market continues rolling toward a new
record year, with sales possibly topping two million units
for the first time.
Another robust month for
GM Canada - up 22 per cent
- helped propel total July
sales 5.3 per cent ahead of the
same month in 2016, itself
a record year. Year-to-date
sales are five per cent ahead
of 2016's pace.
"With each passing month,
we are starting to run out
of descriptors to describe
this market that continues
to show no signs of slowing
down," said David Adams,
president of the Global
Automakers of Canada.
With Ford and FCA posting declines of 7.1 and 2.4 per
cent, respectively, GM outsold
FCA for the month and also
moved ahead of it on a yearto-date basis; Ford Canada
still holds a comfortable lead
overall.
GM's strong July numbers
helped the Detroit Three grow
their combined sales 2.4 per
cent despite Ford's and FCA's
declines. Still, their combined
market share slipped, as the
offshore-based brands grew
their sales 7.4 per cent.
Truck sales rose nine
per cent in July while cars
declined two per cent, giving trucks a 68 per cent market share. A significant driver of that was GM's surge in
pickup sales: 23 per cent for
the full-size Silverado/Sierra
models and 32 per cent for the
midsize Colorado/Canyon.
Overall, GM is up 13.5 per
cent for the year, which "is

MOVERS
& SHAKERS

(Compared with the
same month a year ago)
Nissan Titan: +768%
Jeep Compass: +383%
Nissan Armada: +286%
Buick Lacrosse: +275%
VW New Beetle: +178%
Chrysler 300: -82%
Mercedes S-Class: -63%
Ford Focus: -61%
Fiat brand: -59%
Nissan Altima: -55%
BMW X3: -54%
Hyundai Accent: -49%
FULL OF SURPRISES
Volkswagen Golf: +63%
Volkswagen brand: +33%

July sales of the Silverado/
Sierra duo were up 23 per
cent over 2016's numbers.
(PHOTO: GM CANADA)

like we have sold an extra
month's-worth of retail sales
so far this year," said John
Roth, vice-president, sales,
service and marketing.
Likewise focusing on retail
sales, GM claimed record
year-to-date sales for both the
GMC and the Cadillac divisions.

JEEP CARRIES FCA
While Ford F-series sales
advanced five per cent, FCA's
Ram pickup sales declined
13 per cent in July. But FCA
basked in the glow of best-ever monthly sales for the Jeep
brand in Canada. Sales of
the new Compass were a significant contributor to the
brand's 36-per-cent gain, but
all other Jeep nameplates
except the aging Patriot also
advanced.
Chevrolet Equinox was
another newly redesigned
compact utility vehicle that
surged in July, while sales
of the segment's top sellers
- the Toyota RAV4, Honda
CR-V, Ford Escape and
Nissan Rogue - all declined.
But compact-utility buyers
were snapping up the new
breed of even smaller models, with Nissan selling an
impressive 1,142 copies of the
new Qashqai, and meaningful
sales gains for Buick Encore,
Honda HR-V, Hyundai
Tucson, Kia Sportage, Mazda
CX-3 and Mitsubishi RVR.

VOLKSWAGEN COMEBACK
The "imports'" growth was
headed by the Volkswagen
Group, up 33 per cent as the
automaker put the TDI issue
behind it. Part of that growth
was down to the new Atlas
utility vehicle (507 sold), but
interestingly, sales of the Golf
compact hatchback (including
GTI) spiked 63 per cent even
while the Jetta compact sedan
dipped 10 per cent.
Other strong performers
for the VW group include the
Passat sedan (up 70 per cent),
and record July Porsche
sales; Audi achieved strong
growth for the recently redesigned A5 coupe and Q5 utility vehicle.
July records were also
reported by Subaru, Jaguar
Land Rover, Lexus, Nissan
and Infiniti.
The only offshore automakers that didn't grow their
sales in July were Hyundai
(down 14.4 per cent) and
BMW Group (down 2.9 per
cent). - ANC

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - August 2017