Automotive News Canada - July 2019 - v2 - 22

* JULY 2019

Dealer: Jeep boss Morrison has his work cut out for him White intends to
CONTINUED FROM PA GE 1

high of 83,086 sales in 2016.
The brand - FCA Canada's
second largest behind Ram
- managed a gain of 1.8
per cent last year, to 71,583,
before tumbling 15 per cent
in the first six months of
2019.

TOUGH COMPARISONS
Morrison, interviewed
in the second week of his
new job, said year-over-year
sales comparisons for Jeep
are tough because last year
FCA was selling off old models, such as the previous
Wrangler.
But he noted that Jeep
sales were up nearly one per
cent in June.
"We're getting beyond
that [slump], with the Grand
Cherokee doing a lot of the
heavy lifting for the brand,"
he said.
It has been the only Jeep
vehicle to increase sales this
year, by a robust 28 per cent.
Although Morrison declined
to elaborate, he said it will
be refreshed. Sibling publication Automotive News projects a redesign in 2020.
The challenge with
Wrangler, he said, is not
price since there are seldom
incentives on them.
"It's really just the availability with them. This time
last year, we had two plants
building Wranglers. Now we
have two plants [both] building the Wrangler and the new
Gladiator, but it's just coming online and there's only a
handful yet at dealers."

remain active after
CADA departure

Jim McManes, owner of
McManes Automotive Group
in Calgary, said Morrison has
his work cut out for him.
"Obviously, he has
impressed those guys down
there," said McManes, referring to leaders at the company's Detroit-area U.S. headquarters.
"It's a big job, though."
But Morrison's Canadian
roots bode well, McManes
said.
"He's a Canadian guy. He's
earned his dues. We'll see
where it goes."

CONTINUED FROM PA GE 3

DETAIL IS IN THE DETAILS
Rebuilding sales volume,
said Morrison, will centre
around what Canadian customers are looking for and
staying "laser focused" on
details in each Jeep.
Morrison is convinced
that buyers still want reliability, value, and all-weather capability.
"I grew up in the
Maritimes," he said. "That's
where I learned to drive Jeep
vehicles. Capability means
being able to carry on with
your day and not have to
worry about whether you
can take your son to hockey
practice ... It's great to have
the best four-by-four available."
One common factor that
Morrison sees between Jeep
and Ram is buyers' passion
for the brand.
"It's incredible, and it's
something that - you know,
we're just the temporary
curators of the brand here
at Jeep - but it's something

Jim McManes, owner of McManes Automotive Group
in Calgary, is taking a wait-and-see approach to the
installation of Canadian Jim Morrison as the head of Jeep.
P H O TO : D O U G F I R B Y

that's built on a foundation
of enthusiasts and a foundation of real people that have
made Jeep the cornerstone of
their life."
Wrangler owners, for
example, will pull over to
help each other on a trail, or
talk about what they've done
to update or modify their
vehicle.
"It's not just a vehicle that
gets them from A to B. It's
a vehicle they revolve their
life around."

BETTER ALL-AROUND VEHICLES
He noted that new technology is making Jeeps more
attractive to buyers who
were previously turned off by
ruggedness of off-road capable trucks.
"Ten years ago, they need-

ed to spend an extra $200 a
month on fuel or they needed
to bounce down the road like
it was a buckboard to have
the capability they needed.
You look at a Renegade now
or a Compass, incredible
four-wheel-drive technology
. . . [and] just really good fuel
economy."
With refined interiors and
ride quality, "there's no compromise anymore."
Morrison was non specific about new technologies for
gaining fuel economy, but
said the company sees "efficient four-wheel-drive technology" as key to the future.
"Every time you touch a
Jeep, you make it more capable and make it more fuel
efficient at the same time."
- ANC

al new-vehicle sales at Mercedes
Canada rose by 32 per cent between
2012 - his first full year as CEO -
and 2015.
Following his departure from
Mercedes, Reuss was president of
the Dilawri Group, Canada's largest dealership group, from 2016-17.
In 2017, he became a managing partner at TAR Consulting and a senior
adviser at McKinsey & Co., a consulting firm based in the United
States.
According to his LinkedIn profile
page, Reuss graduated from Stanford
University in California with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1987.
In 2017, he also graduated from the
University of Toronto's Rotman
School of Management.
Reuss was selected to lead CADA
after a roughly three-month search.
According to CADA, the group's
executive board and search committee consulted with White and
hired the firm Amrop Knightsbridge
during that time.
Reuss speaks five languages,
including French.
White will step down at the end
of August to return to his native
Montreal. He told Automotive News
Canada earlier this year that he
plans to stay active in the automotive sector moving forward.
During White's tenure, CADA
lobbied against the imposition of
auto import tariffs, and more recently, worked with the federal government on the launch of its iZEV
incentive program. - ANC

Canada risks inserting itself into U.S.-Calif. emissions conflict
CONTINUED FROM PA GE 1

with a single, integrated system of standards."
Automakers now build to a single
set of standards adopted by the United
States and California in 2012. A U.S.California split could force them to produce separate vehicles for two markets,
or build vehicles to the higher standard.
The Canadian Vehicle
Manufacturers' Association (CVMA),
representing the Detroit Three, said
any dual-market system could undermine the still-to-be ratified treaty that
will replace the North American Free
Trade Agreement.
"Why did we just spend the last two
years renegotiating an agreement that
underpins North America as a trade
bloc, that preserves the three-country approach, preserves our integrated industry and supply chains, and is
designed to remove technical barriers
to trade and to align regulations ultimately because of the efficiencies?"
said CVMA president Mark Nantais.
Canada has long matched the United
States on safety and emissions regulations. But McKenna's announcement signals that Canada won't follow U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) recommendations to
freeze tailpipe standards at 2020 levels
through 2026 instead of requiring yearly improvements to reach a fleet average of 54.5 mpg in government testing,
or about 36 mpg in on-road driving.

Industry groups say a more likely
Carmakers had lobbied for lower
result would be reduced product offeryearly increases to the 54.5 mpg tarings and higher prices as consumers
get - though not a freeze - arguing
compete for fewer available vehicles.
that the Obama-era federal regulations
"Any movement away from a harmothey signed on to in 2012 didn't anticnized approach will hinder choice and
ipate softening fuel prices and rising
increase costs for Canadian
consumer demand for larger
consumers," warned the
vehicles.
Canadian Automobile Dealers
It also inserts Canada into
Association (CADA), reprea political confrontation typsenting 3,200 franchised new
ical of the President Trump
-car and truck dealerships
era. California is leading a
across the country.
coalition of 17 states and the
CADA didn't estimate how
District of Columbia in a fedmuch prices could rise, but
eral court suit to overturn the
spokesman Huw Williams
EPA plan, while the Trump
suggested some shoppers
administration is seeking to
Huw Williams:
could end up keeping their
revoke the right of California
Moving toward
old cars instead of moving to
- long a driver of U.S. emisfragmented
cleaner, less thirsty vehicles.
sions policy - and other states fuel-economy
"That's a consumer cost as
to set their own limits.
standards
well, and an economic cost,"
could result
IS TOUGHER BETTER?
in some
Williams said.
McKenna said aligning
consumers
Flavio Volpe, president
keeping their
with California's mileage tarof the Automotive Parts
old cars.
gets and zero-emission vehiManufacturers' Association,
cle program could spur invest- F I L E P H O TO
said that Canadian assemment in clean transportation
bly plants now are chiefly
in Canada. The two jurisdictions repdevoted to crossovers and larger vehiresented four million of the 19 million
cles. McKenna's contention that the
new light vehicles sold in Canada and
MOU would encourage automakers to
the United States in 2018.
change the type of vehicles they build
"We can build the vehicles of the
in Canada is unrealistic, he said.
future here at home, create good
"You would put companies into a
jobs, and remain competitive, all the
difficult position of not selling localwhile reducing pollution and helping
ly what they make locally, increasing
Canadians save hundreds of dollars a
their cost per unit and decreasing the
year at the pump," McKenna said in a
competitiveness of local manufacturstatement.
ing," he said. "And you would de facto

put a cloud over the Canadian automotive value proposition."
Still, Volpe believes the federal
Liberals took a "prudent step" with the
nonbinding agreement, which conveys
opposition to lower limits on emissions
but doesn't lock Canada in. He said
government officials, who are conducting their own midterm review of the
fuel-economy standards, heeded industry advice in devising Canada's strategy.

FEAR OF TWO STANDARDS

If automakers sought relief from the
Obama-era reductions - which could
still remain as the effective standard if
enough states side with California -
they're more concerned at the prospect
of building to two markets even as they
invest hundreds of millions in electric
vehicles and other alternatives to meet
longer-term emissions goals.
Adams and Nantais said their
groups have joined their U.S. counterparts in pressing for a single standard
acceptable to California, Canada and
U.S. federal regulators.
"We want a reasonable standard or
regulation that's achievable, recognizes
the dynamic in the marketplace, recognizes fuel costs, recognizes technology
costs," said Nantais.
Any resolution, however, could be
far off.
"I think the drama on this is far
from over, and that's both political and
litigious," said Volpe. "It is still very
early days." - ANC

Automotive News Canada - July 2019 - v2

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