Automotive News Canada - April 2023 - 1

INTELLIGENT COCKPIT:MORE LUCRATIVE FOR AUTOMAKERS THAN THE VEHICLES?/P20
APRIL 2023 | VOL. 7, NO. 4 | AUTOMOTIVENEWS.CA FOR BREAKING NEWS AND DIGITAL EDITION
ONLINE
RETAILING
REBOOT
CANADA DRIVES
AND CLUTCH/P14
THE REASONS WHY AND THE LESSONS LEARNED
Signs point
to an Audi
EV plant next
Volkswagen's new Canadian
battery facility makes a vehicle
factory 'a real possibility'
By DAVID KENNEDY
T ORONTO BUREAU CHIEF
AUDI IS CONSIDERING A
new North American site to
build electric vehicles, and
putting it near
Volkswagen
Group's planned
battery plant in St.
NEWS
ANALYSIS
Thomas, Ont., makes sense,
auto analysts say.
Such a factory " is a real possibility, "
said Conrad Layson,
a senior alternative propulsion
analyst at the U.S.-based forecasting
firm
AutoForecast
Solutions
(AFS).
" It puts
the Audi production
line
very close to
the PowerCo
facility, ... and
there are benefits
to that, "
Layson said.
Because battery
cells do
not travel well,
minimizing
the distance
between battery
and vehicle
production
cuts down on
READ MORE ABOUT THE NEW
VOLKSWAGEN BATTERY PLANT
An elevator ride
to the ground floor
of the deal/P11
Several chemistries
for five or more
vehicle models/P18
transport. It's almost like transporting
live animals. Some of
them don't make it. "
Layson:
Audi would
benefit from
having an
EV assembly
plant near
Volkswagen's
battery
plant in St.
Thomas, Ont.
FILE PHOTO
cell scrappage, he said.
" These things are electrochemical
reactions, even in
their lowest-charge state during
On March 13, Volkswagen
and PowerCo,VW's battery
unit, announced plans to build
a cell plant in St. Thomas, midway
between Toronto and
Windsor. Few details have been
released, but more are expected
at an event in St. Thomas
planned for the coming weeks.
AUDI HASN'T DECIDED
In February, Audi CEO
Markus Duesmann said the
automaker was looking at a
possible plant in the United
States because of the EV incentives
included in the Inflation
Reduction Act, passed last year.
The U.S. incentives extend
to vehicles built in Canada,
although Audi would not
SEE WORKERS PAGE 26
Q1 sales tick upward, against a low bar
By GREG LAYSON
DIGITAL AND MOBILE EDITOR
PERKY FIRST-QUARTER
sales for 2023 are best viewed
through a lens of context and
cautious optimism as the industry
continues to slowly move
toward a post-pandemic market.
Automakers sold an estimated
348,000 vehicles during
Analysts expect a
long and bumpy road
ahead; there are signs
that affordability and
interest rates are
becoming factors
the first three months, up 5.2
per cent over 330,593 sold in the
same period a year ago, according
to DesRosiers Automotive
Consultants
(DAC). The number
is an estimate
because Porsche
won't report quarterly
sales until
SALES
ANALYSIS
Q1 STATS
P30-31
mid-April, and Ford Canada
recently announced it no longer
SEE INTEREST PAGE 27
DRAWING
BORDERS
ON AUTO
THEFT
Increasing numbers of stolen
vehicles are slipping out of
Canada, but should that be the
automakers' problem to solve?
By KELLY TAYLOR
WINNIPEG CORRESPONDENT
CANADA'S AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR WANTS
Ottawa to crack down on the smuggling of stolen
cars through the Port of Montreal, pointing its
finger directly at the Canadian Border Services
Agency (CBSA) while countering suggestions that
the industry isn't doing enough to curb the thefts.
" The challenge, well known to everybody from
OEMs to dealers to police forces, is the Port of
Montreal is pretty porous as a means of getting
vehicles out of the country, " said David Adams,
president of the Global Automakers of Canada
(GAC), which lobbies for import automakers.
Patrick Brown, mayor of Brampton, Ont.,
Agency (CBSA) while countering suggestions that
the industry isn't doing enough to curb the thefts.
" The challenge, well known to everybody from
recently urged the federal government to mandate
tougher anti-theft measures built into vehicles.
According to the Peel Regional Police, which
patrols Brampton and Mississauga, last year
the area suffered a 47-per-cent surge in thefts
- to 6,042 vehicles stolen, up from 4,119 in 2021.
recently urged the federal government to mandate
The thieves are
well-fi nanced organized
criminals. And no matter
what systems are on
vehicles, the thieves will
fi nd a way, usually
relatively quickly,
to circumvent them. "
David Adams
President, Global Automakers
of Canada
The trend isn't improving:
Through Feb. 28 of this year,
1,477 vehicles had been stolen,
a 74-per-cent increase
over the same period in
2022, when 848 vehicles were
snatched.
But imposing tougher
anti-theft measures on the
auto industry is not the solution,
said Huw Williams,
public affairs director for
the Canadian Automobile
Dealers Association (CADA).
" You can make a car
impossible to steal, " he said,
" but then you make it harder
to repair and harder for
the consumer to use. "
Williams said cars stolen
in the Hamilton-Montreal
corridor are driven straight
to the Port of Montreal and
Williams:
" It literally is
a complete
failure of
CBSA to do
their job,
and their
excuse today
is they're
focused
on things
coming into
this country. "
FILE PHOTO
show up days later on car lots in Africa, " with
their Ontario plates, parking passes and 407
SEE INDUSTRY PAGE 26
PHOTO: iSTOCK
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Automotive News Canada - April 2023

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