Automotive News Canada - January 2020 - 1

THE 2019 HEADLINES THAT SHAPED THE CANADIAN INDUSTRY/P12-13

JANUARY 2020 | VOL. 4, NO.1 | AUTOMOTIVENEWS.CA FOR BREAKING NEWS AND DIGITAL EDITION

Sales trend toward 80 per cent light trucks in 2020
By GREG LAYSON

D I G I TA L A N D M O B I L E E D I T O R

CANADIANS CONTINUE TO
flee from sedans and flock to light
trucks with no sign of stopping,
prompting manufacturers to give
consumers more of what they
want.
Automakers sold 1.92 million vehicles in Canada in 2019,

Overall numbers slipped 3.6 per cent in 2019,
but buyers spent more per vehicle
and 74 per cent of those were
light trucks, up three percentage
points over 2018, according to the
Automotive News Data Center in
Detroit.
Total sales for the year
were down 3.6 per cent, while

December sales were off 4.6 per
cent to 110,370.
"We predicted the market to
be down three or four per cent,
and that's exactly what happened," said Dennis DesRosiers,
head of DesRosiers Automotive

Consultants in Toronto.
What DesRosiers doesn't
know, however, is when the
migration from cars to trucks will
end.
"I don't think we've reached a
plateau," he said.
DesRosiers estimates that
automakers plan to introduce

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS CANADA

There are retailers
selling at deep
discounts to cope,
while others are
bucking allocations
By JOHN IRWIN
TORONTO BUREAU

SOME FCA CANADA
dealers say "they're under
pressure" to take more vehicles - in some cases up to
three months' worth - or risk
losing co-op advertising support from the automaker.
Two dealers, who requested anonymity, said the move
marks a policy change,

Shahin Alizadeh of
Downtown Auto Group says
FCA might use co-op ad
support to get dealers to
"play ball" on inventory.
FILE PHOTO

although it was unclear
whether it applied to all of
the automaker's 440 dealers
across Canada or was targeted
at specific retailers in certain
markets.
An FCA Canada spokesman declined to comment, citing "competitive reasons."
But a company memo
obtained by Automotive News
Canada in late November
outlines the change: "These
incremental program [sic]
are a privilege for Market
Driving dealers. Acceptance
of your dealership's Year-End
Wholesale Requirements is a
condition to qualify for Coop
and Merchandising funds
until further notice."
The memo is signed by
FCA's "Eastern Business
Center Management Team."
The retailers, interviewed
in late December, said they
were informed that co-op
advertising and merchandising support for promotional
events had been cut and that
acceptance of year-end wholesale requirements was a condition for receiving those
funds in the future.
They expressed concern

SEE SOME FCA PAGE 19

Canadians have been
abandoning passenger cars for light trucks
since 2005. Per cent of
light-vehicle sales by
category:

Year
2019
2015
2010
2005

Truck
74%
62%
53%
45%

Car
26%
38%
47%
55%

Automotive News Data Centre

RANSOM: It's a question

LEADING
WOMEN
PA N E L D I S C U S S I O N /P14-15

FCA to dealers:
Boost inventory
or lose ad support

SEE ANNUAL PAGE 17

RUNAWAY TRUCKS

of when, not if, and the
best planning begins
with the admission
it will happen

FIGHTING
BACK FROM

THE
HACK
By STEPHANIE WALLCRAFT
TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

CANADA'S PARTS MANUFACTURERS ARE BEING URGED
to bolster their defences against
cybersecurity attacks - a growing
menace that threatens the entire
auto industry, including dealers
and car companies, experts warn.
"This is something that happens
to everybody in every industry,"
said Hassan el Bouhali, chief information officer for Toronto-based
Woodbridge Group. "What we need
to do is get educated, do things
about it and learn from each other

and share with each other what it
is we did to protect our business."
El Bouhali used a November
industry conference to publicly
share his company's experience
with a ransomware attack that
struck the foam manufacturer last
September.
"By sharing, we break that
taboo," el Bouhali told the
Automotive Parts Manufacturers'
Association conference on cybersecurity.
According to a 2019 study commissioned by U.S.-based cybersecurity provider Carbon Black, 88
per cent of Canadian organizations
surveyed said they have suffered
one or more breaches in the past
12 months due to external cyberattacks, and 82 per cent reported an
increase in cyberattacks over the
same period.
Of those that experienced a
breach, 78 per cent said they think
these incidents are becoming more
sophisticated.

RANSOM DOESN'T PAY
Outside the automotive industry, the Canadian medical laboratory testing company LifeLabs

RELATED

ASSUME A DATA
ATTACK IS
SEE AUTO PAGE 17 COMING /P10

JOI N TH E S E AR CH FO R
CA NA DA'S BES T!

REG IS T R AT IO N N OW O PE N
See pg. 16 for more info
http://www.AUTOMOTIVENEWS.CA
Automotive News Canada - January 2020

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