Automotive News Canada - April 2018 - 3

SECOND FRONT

04.18

Laid-off GM workers will likely be building trucks when they return
Lagging car sales forced the layoff, but as Oshawa gears up
for the Silverado/Sierra, reassignments mean fewer new hires
By JOHN IRWIN
TORONTO BUREAU

A CUTBACK IN CAR
production at General Motors'
Oshawa, Ont., assembly plant

will result in fewer new hires
than originally planned there,
a Unifor official said.
GM Canada said in
February that it would continue its one-shift operation
at Oshawa until May 28 due

Ontario loses
Corolla production,
gains RAV4 Hybrid
The move from Japan could
make up for shift of Corolla
to new plant in Alabama
By MARK RICHARDSON
COBOURG CORRESPONDENT

TOYOTA CONFIRMED AT THE NEW YORK
auto show in April that for the first time, the
hybrid version of the RAV4, which was recently reengineered, will be made in Canada beginning early next
year. It will help
to replace the
loss of Corolla
production,
which is moving
to a new plant in
Alabama.
Currently,
The 2018 RAV4 Hybrid
the convenmakes up about an eighth
tionally powof Toyota's RAV4 sales.
ered RAV4s are
( P H O T O : T O Y O TA )
built either at
Toyota's assembly plant in Woodstock, Ont.,
or in Japan, but all hybrid models are built in
Japan.
The RAV4 compact crossover is Toyota's
best-selling vehicle in Canada, with 2017 sales
of 50,894. It was also the best-selling vehicle in
the United States that was not a pickup truck,
with sales of 407,594. About one in eight of those
vehicles in both countries were hybrids.
Toyota Canada operates plants in
Woodstock, Cambridge and North Cambridge,
where it builds the Corolla sedan, RAV4, Lexus
RX350 and RX450h.
Toyota Canada spokeswoman Melanie
Testani said it has not yet been confirmed

SEE RAV4 PAGE 4

TRANS-CANADA NEWS

to sharply lower car sales in
North America. The plant
builds the Chevrolet Impala
and Cadillac XTS on its flex
line.
Unifor Local 222 President
Colin James said about 600

impact of having people on
layoff, we'll move them over to
the truck line," James said.
He said reassigning those
laid-off workers will mean GM
will likely hire fewer workers than the union originally
thought. Unifor said last year
that it anticipated about 500

By JOHN IRWIN
TORONTO BUREAU

TORONTO - NONE OF
GM Canada's manufacturing facilities send waste
to landfills, a policy the
company said has helped
it save money and become
more efficient.
Doug Yates, director
of environmental affairs,
said transitioning each of
its plants to landfill-free
operations has forced the
company to examine virtually every aspect of the
manufacturing process.
He said GM has tweaked
operations to reduce waste
and has worked with suppliers on
ways to
more efficiently use
products.
GM is
one of several automakers to eliminate
waste at plants. Honda
has said it produces zero
waste at its Alliston, Ont.,
assembly plants, while
Ford's Oakville, Ont.,
assembly plant went landfill-free in 2014.
"It's good for the environment. It's also good for
the bottom line," Yates
said.
Oshawa Assembly and
the Canadian Technical
Centre Oshawa campus
joined GM's growing,
global list of landfill-free
facilities in February.
GM said it has 142 facilities around the globe
that recycle, reuse or convert its waste to energy,
including all manufactur-

GM'
s
ZERO WASTE
ZERO-WASTE
PLANTS

Going landfill-free
saves money,
streamlines
processes
Cardboard and packing materials are
baled at GM manufacturing sites for
recycling. GM plants reuse, recycle or
compost about 96 per cent of waste
and convert four per cent into energy.
(PHOTO: GENERAL MOTORS)

5,000 KILOMETRES OF STORIES

Two hats, one job
for Carson in Calgary

Trevor Carson is now the dealer principal of Tower Chrysler in Calgary.
He moved from Moncton, N.B., where
he was dealer principal of Moncton
Chrysler. ( F I L E P H O T O )

workers are on layoff while
the plant is on one shift. He
said those workers will likely return to the plant this year
when GM plans to ramp up
production of the Chevrolet
Silverado and GMC Sierra
pickups.
"Once truck [production]
goes to two shifts, I'd imagine rather than the negative

MONCTON, N.B. -
Moncton Chrysler Dealer
Principal Trevor Carson
has joined AutoCanada
in Calgary, Alta., as dealer principal of Tower
Chrysler and platform
manager of five other
AutoCanada Chrysler
stores in the Calgary market. Carson said that the
biggest challenge will be

to grow sales at six stores
amid Alberta's still-recovering, post-recession economy.
The move, after coming
up through the ranks of the
car business over 20 years
in the Maritimes, represents "a big opportunity"
that he said he is eager to
pursue.
The dual title will mean
busier days, Carson said,
though the jobs largely

SEE XTS PAGE 4

ing plants in Mexico and
South America as well as
Canada.
"It helps us to become
more efficient," Yates
said. "Certainly, if you're
engineering something
out [of the manufacturing
process], you're not buying a material in the first
place. Or if you're using it
efficiently, you're consuming less overall, which is
helpful."

DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS
The first GM plant to
go landfill-free in Canada
was the St. Catharines
Propulsion Plant in 2008.
Yates said it took longer
for Oshawa to become
landfill-free because each
plant has different processes that require different solutions, some that
can be complex and difficult to solve.
For instance, the
Oshawa plant used a paint
primer that comes in a
powdered form. Excess
powder could be difficult
to capture and could be
landfilled. According to
GM, the company worked
with the supplier of the
primer to take the excess
powder and put it toward
other uses. GM also said it
has changed its manufacturing process to reduce
the amount of moisture
the powder is exposed to,
keeping it dry and limiting waste.
The landfill-free initiative extends beyond manufacturing operations at the
plant, Yates said.

SEE NOT ALL PAGE 4

complement one another.
Mike Squires succeeds
Carson as dealer principal
at Moncton Chrysler.
- Joe Knycha

Quebec mine cranks
up lithium production
SHAWINIGAN, QUE. -
Growing demand for EV
batteries in the coming
years has lithium-salt provider Nemaska Lithium
expanding production. By
2020, the company said, it
will produce as much as
25,000 metric tonnes of the
essential main ingredi-

The Nemaska Lithium
plant is increasing
output to meet increased
EV-battery demand.
(PHOTO: NEMASKA LITHIUM)

ent in lithium-ion EV batteries. About one million
metric tonnes of ore from

SEE TRANS-CANADA PAGE 25

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - April 2018