Automotive News Canada - June 2018 - v2 - 17

17

* JUNE 2018

own personal goals and objectives."

ON ELECTRIC AND
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES
D'ERAMO: "It's great for
us. The complexity of parts
increases. The lightweighting needs are greater. It just
advances where we want to
go faster.
"We think that hybrids are
going to be the big winner in
this. With autonomy and the
draw of the [central processing units] and the weight of
the CPUs, the current EVs are
going to struggle.
"I don't believe, personally, that you're ever going to
see 100 per cent autonomous
unless motorcycles are eliminated from the earth. How
many guys on motorcycles or
driving convertible Porsches
want to be autonomous? I see
a mix, always.
"A lot of the data implies
that the number of autonomous vehicles that are owned
are going to be much greater than you would think.
And the ones that are shared,
there will be a tremendous
amount of time and miles on
them, so there will be more
wear and tear on them.
"Everyone seeks some
level of affluence, it's human
nature. And once you get it,
you want a place to live, and
you want stuff. And a car is
stuff."

ON RENEGOTIATIONS OF THE
NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE
AGREEMENT

WILDEBOER: "We're very
close to the Canadian
negotiating team and to
Flavio [Volpe, president
of the Automotive Parts
Manufacturers' Association].
And as we've gone this whole
time, we've had experts,
including NAFTA experts,
border experts, tax experts
and counsel, effectively working with us. So we're in
essence running a case study
for people. That's part of public service.
"The key is [to] get your
facts straight. I'm not sure
the U.S. team has their facts
straight. But it's a negotiation, and I'm not sure they
care in the context of that.
They want more assembly
plants in the United States.
Where we sit, we can go wherever our customer does in any
case. With respect to NAFTA,
a lot of the really bad proposals are behind us. There's a
recognition that there's a lot
of good here.
"Higher North American
content doesn't hurt us. It
helps us. It shouldn't be ridiculously high, but where
it was, even enforcement,
if it goes a little higher, I
think that's good for North
American suppliers, and it's
good for us."

ON UNCERTAINTY IN THE
CANADIAN AUTO SECTOR
STEMMING FROM NAFTA
NEGOTIATIONS

WILDEBOER: "I think that
uncertainty affects some
investment decisions from
our customers. We want to
make North America great

again, we want to make
America great again. But this
is a pretty great industry. The
world is centred around what
we're doing, including driverless [vehicles]. That's all
being done in Detroit and in
Waterloo, Ont., and so forth.
But at the end of the day, people get tired about talking
about everything."

Getting into a wider
customer base is big for
us. It'll help us as we
move forward.
PAT D'ERAMO

ON HOW ONTARIO CAN ATTRACT
MAJOR INVESTMENTS, SUCH AS
TOYOTA'S RECENT DECISION TO
SPEND $1.4 BILLION ON TWO
CANADIAN ASSEMBLY PLANTS

WILDEBOER: "A company
will make a decision based
on all-in costs and then the

CEO, Martinrea

certainty of the environment that they invest in. And
there, I think Ontario and

the feds have put on a number of things that have been
death by a million cuts: energy policy, taxes. Some of our
traditional advantages like
the low Canadian dollar and

lower health care costs and
lower taxes are going away
because the U.S. has lowered
taxes.
"The thing with Toyota
is, would they have required
as much as they got from the
Ontario and Canadian governments if these other things
were more competitive? It
seems a little strange that you
have to write a cheque, though
it makes sense. You have to
write a cheque to make yourself competitive and level the
playing field.
"We will locate where our
customers locate. But we
like being here, and we have
employees that like being here,
too." - ANC
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