Automotive News Canada - December 2021 - 10

10
12.21
OPINION
The 2021 All-Stars:
Driven to innovate
THE MISSION OF AUTOMOTIVE
News Canada's All-Stars program
is to showcase outstanding
achievement in the Canadian auto
industry, and the 2021 honourees
proved to be exceptional innovators
in a year that required them
to do exactly that.
It's up to our sharp editorial
team to review the news stories of
the year and to select nominees
based on, frankly, their wow factor.
The people associated with the
biggest and boldest stories are the
most obvious nominees and rightly
so.
It should come as
no surprise that
when the auto
industry faces
adversity, the
workarounds
turn into new
opportunities.
When U.S.-based Lithia Motors
(now Lithia and Driveway) acquired
Pfaff Automotive Partners - a
groundbreaking purchase of a
Canadian dealership group by a
U.S. company
- the main
architect of the
deal, Bryan
DeBoer,
became an
instant nominee.
Likewise,
when General
Motors'
Oshawa
Assembly Plant
began building
Chevrolet pickups
in November, after ending
production nearly two years ago,
GM Canada President Scott Bell
was an easy All-Star pick.
But in a year spent navigating
the ever-changing public health
protocols limiting in-person gatherings
- a situation that shows no
signs of letting up with the arrival
of the Omicron variant of COVID19
- the auto industry was
forced to be nimble and creative,
perhaps like it never had before. A
closed land border to the United
States and of course the global
microchip shortage and related
supply-chain unreliability also
drove and inspired many 2021 AllStars.
Necessity is the mother of
invention, as the saying goes, and
indeed they invented.
Last year Automotive News
Canada selected 18 All-Stars. This
year we dug deeper and spotlighted
25, many of whom built new
normals for themselves that were
anything but normal.
One of my favourite All-Stars is
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
JEFF
MELNYCHUK
Art Angielski, the general manager
of Sherwood Park Toyota near
Edmonton, who essentially opened
up the dealership's parts department
to the world. The online
business, launched in 2018, is
selling components in significant
numbers across North America,
Angielski told Automotive News
Canada in the July edition. The
e-commerce revenue stream is
worth about $50,000 to $60,000
a month in sales, he said.
The simple-yet-brilliant idea
was hatched to offset declining
customer visits to the service lane.
" Used to be oil changes were
every 5,000 or 8,000 kilometres, "
Angielski said. " Now, they're
16,000 kilometres, so your visits
per customer are dropping and
you have to find new ways to drive
revenue. "
Perhaps there's something in
the water that's inspiring
Edmonton Toyota dealers, but
another favourite is Jim Jiwani,
president of Prestige Auto Group,
who relocated his flagship Toyota
store to - as in inside - the
West Edmonton Mall.
With online shopping cleaving
business from brick-and-mortar
retail - causing widespread store
closures - compounded by
COVID-19 restrictions that keep
people at home to shop online
even more, it would seem that a
mall is hardly the best place to
relocate a dealership.
But the West Edmonton Mall
isn't just any mall. It's a destination
and a theme park with
12,000 employees and 32 million
visitors a year. Talk about foot traffic.
Talk about exposure. Talk
about a brilliant move.
Spend a few moments reviewing
the 25 All-Stars on Pages 16
to 20 and you will also find some
favourites. They are all innovators,
but that should come as little surprise
to anyone who works within
Canada's auto industry. - ANC
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Doug Ford's 'no' on EV rebates
now sounds like a 'hmm ...'
IT APPEARS AS THOUGH ONTARIO PREMIER DOUG
Ford is rethinking his stance against incentives
aimed at encouraging consumers to buy electric
vehicles.
" We'll take a look at that down the road and
see what we can do, " Ford told Automotive News
Canada Toronto bureau chief David
Kennedy after addressing the
Automotive Parts Manufacturers'
Association conference Dec. 7.
Ford telegraphed a similar
sentiment just three weeks earlier
at a Guelph, Ont., news conference
held to announce the province's
EV strategy.
If Ontario
revives EV
incentives,
they will have
to reflect the
popularity of
pickups and
SUVs.
" Before the [last provincial] election, I didn't
believe in giving millionaires rebates on $100,000
Tesla cars, " he told reporters. " Nothing against
Tesla, they're gorgeous cars, but ... I just didn't
believe in it. Let's see how the
market dictates. "
The " millionaires " reference
is a shot at the former Liberal
government's EV-rebate program,
which was canceled soon
after the Conservatives took
power in 2018.
The Liberal plan, introduced
by then-Ontario Premier
Kathleen Wynne, offered incentives
of up to $14,000 per vehicle.
But it came under fire for
including six-figure luxury cars
on the list of eligible vehicles.
It's a gaffe that Wynne's successor, Steven Del
Duca, isn't about to repeat. On Nov. 23, Del Duca
announced a pledge to bring back EV incentives if
his party wins the provincial election in June.
The Liberal plan would offer rebates of up to
$8,000 on electric cars and a maximum of
$1,500 for installing charging infrastructure. That's
on top of the current federal subsidies of up to
$5,000 per EV.
MACALUSO
MANAGING EDITOR
GRACE
Eligible vehicles would mirror those included in
the federal program, which has
price caps ranging from $45,000
to $55,000.
But Ottawa appears poised to
raise that ceiling. Federal
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra
told The Canadian Press in
December that
he wants to
overhaul the federal program to
more closely reflect consumer
preferences.
" The vast majority of vehicles
purchased today are SUVs and
pickup trucks, " Alghabra said. " And
while [zero-emission vehicle]
options are becoming available for
these segments, many of these
will be priced out of the current
iZEV program. "
Ford:
Appears
to have a
change of
heart on EV
rebates.
FILE PHOTO
Unless Ottawa raises price
caps, upcoming electric SUVs and
pickups - such as the F-150 Lightning, which carries
a base price of $58,000 before the destination
charge - would be excluded from iZEV
rebates.
Premier Ford's EV rebate musings could turn
into policy in the not-too-distant future, certainly
before the next election. And while subsidies won't
enrich " millionaires, " the premier will be looking at
heftier rebates for a market that is abandoning the
economy sedan. - ANC
A growing EV supply chain outside
Ontario needs a 'Team Canada approach'
THE CALLS HAVE BEEN SO
frequent and made by so many
over the years that the idea of a
national auto strategy has
almost become white noise.
But Canada needs one now
more than ever.
Brendan Sweeney, the executive
director of the London,
Ont.-based Trillium Network for
Advanced Manufacturing, convinced
me of that on the Dec. 3
episode of the Automotive News
Canada podcast.
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The Canadian
auto industry
is rapidly
expanding
beyond the
core of
Ontario.
He told me he's " 100 million
per cent "
behind the
idea, and
here's why: The
traditional automotive
industry
and its supply
chain are
changing -
and fast.
The rapid
pace of electrification
means mining is now
part of the auto industry. And
with the race toward autonomous
vehicles well under way,
technology is an even greater
part of the supply chain. And, of
course, as now-retired Magna
CEO Don Walker once said -
and I'm paraphrasing - vehicles
will always need seats.
This Canadian auto industry
is no longer essentially contained
along Ontario's Highway
401 between Windsor and
DIGITAL AND
MOBILE EDITOR
GREG
LAYSON
Oshawa. It now can - and
should - include mining in
northern Ontario and Quebec. It
includes the fuel-cell research
being done by companies such
as Ballard in Burnaby, B.C.
And what about Alberta?
Yes, Alberta, where the Alberta
Centre for Advanced
Microsystems and
Nanotechnology Products
(ACAMP) supports the development
of autonomous-transportation
technologies.
And there's Canada's own
battery guru, Jeff Dahn, whom
we recently profiled, doing battery
research in Halifax.
The auto industry and the
federal government policy
affecting it can no longer be
ignored by folks in Alberta or
Manitoba, which is a hub for
bus and fire-truck assembly.
Sure, those aren't automobiles,
but they're transportation.
" Until relatively recently, it
was really quite hard to pitch
automotive as a pan-Canadian
thing to folks in Saskatchewan
or folks in Cape Breton, "
Sweeney said. " But if we can
do this tip-to-tail battery supply
chain, well, this extends into
northern communities and
extends into First Nations communities.
" So,
it's about time. We
have clusters and lists of discrete
initiatives and very valuable
capabilities. We have to
bring them together. And it's
going to take a strategy to do
that, and it's going to take a
coordination and probably some
type of coordinating body of
authority. We can't have seven
coordinating bodies. It's time. "
The need for a coordinated
effort - especially aimed at the
rise of U.S. protectionism, particularly
President Joe Biden's
proposed EV credit - has put
together some strange bedfellows.
On
Dec. 9, the Ontario government
created the Premier's
Council on U.S. Trade and
Industry Competitiveness,
designed to keep the province
competitive in manufacturing -
automotive in particular.
Interestingly, Premier Doug
Ford's council will be chaired by
Unifor President Jerry Dias.
A Conservative government's
council chaired by a unionist. I
never thought I would see the
day.
Speaking to suppliers just
days before the council's creation,
Ford nailed it:
" This is the time for a Team
Canada approach. " - ANC

Automotive News Canada - December 2021

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