Automotive News Canada - January 2024 - 15

* JANUARY 2024
15
ing. Canadian mining companies
say support for projects providing
critical minerals for the battery
industry pales in comparison
with the VW and Stellantis
battery-plant deals. " I'd be greatly
disappointed if we provided
such strong grants to foreign entities
without providing it for fellow
Ontarians, " Frontier Lithium
President Trevor Walker said.
■ ■ ■
General Motors announces it
will spend $280 million to retool
the Oshawa Assembly Plant
northeast of Toronto to build the
next generation of internal combustion
engine full-size pickups.
GM does not release product
details or timing.
deviation from past talks - the
UAW is simultaneously bargaining
with the Detroit Three in the
United States. Unifor represents
about 20,000 plant workers in
Canada. ■ ■ ■
General Motors'
JULY
THE FEDERAL AND ONTARIO
governments scramble to repair
the damage from a monthslong
squabble over financial support
for the $5-billion Stellantis-LG
Energy Solution battery plant in
Windsor. Stellantis had stopped
construction and threatened
to move certain production to
the United States in retaliation
to more generous government
support offered to Volkswagen
and its new battery plant in St.
Thomas, south of London. The
result is up to $15
billion in production
tax credits for
Stellantis. The federal
and Ontario
governments form
what Ontario calls
a new auto pact,
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which standardizes government
funding for future projects. ■ ■ ■
Delays at Vancouver's Annacis
Auto Terminal - a key gateway
in Canada for Asia-built cars -
are forcing automakers to find
alternatives. Hyundai began
diverting some of its cars to U.S.
ports. A dockworkers' strike
July 1 only adds to the problems.
■ ■ ■
From Shereena Robinson,
senior manager of human
resources at Porsche Canada,
to Kunal Phalpher, president of
lithium startup
Li-Metal, Automotive News
Canada names 17 executives
to its 2023 list of Canadians to
Watch.
AUGUST
AS DEALERSHIPS STRUGGLE
to find technicians, the Motor
Vehicle Retailers of Ontario and
Canadian Automobile Dealers
Association urge the federal government
to cut the red tape holding
back hiring of qualified foreign
workers. ■ ■ ■
Momentous
contract talks between Unifor
and the Detroit Three in Canada
begin. Better wages, pensions
and job security in the EV era
are key concerns of workers.
Of particular interest - and a
CAMI Assembly Plant, which
builds BrightDrop commercial
EV vans, gets another assembly
line: the plant will produce battery
modules for BrightDrop and
Ultium-platform vehicles. ■ ■ ■
Ford Canada and Metro Ford in
Calgary mark a series of firsts
with the recent grand opening of
the automaker's inaugural franchised
dealership on Indigenous
land. The 80,000-square-foot
(7,400-square-metre) " Signature "
design structure, built on 8.5
acres (3.5 hectares),
is an anchor for the
Taza Park business
development within
the Tsuut'ina nation
on Calgary's western
outskirts. The
groundbreaking
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took place in August 2021 with
Metro Ford relocating from its
longtime location in central
Calgary. At the July 15 grand
opening, Ford Canada President
Bev Goodman said it's the first
Ford dealership on native land
in Canada and, " to my knowledge, "
currently the largest
Ford dealership in the country.
cant financial ground over nearly
three decades, with a starting
wage today that's only $2
per hour more than
the $22 per hour in
1995. Adjusted for
inflation, that's the
equivalent to nearly
$40 per hour today.
Analysts say the
backsliding, comSCAN
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bined with fleeting employer
loyalty, means the industry
isn't the draw for workers it
once was. ■ ■ ■
The epidemic of
auto theft might be reaching its
peak. Renewed law-enforcement
attention and a return of vehicle
inventories are on the verge
of reversing the trend. " This is
the first time that I've been optimistic
in the last three years
that we're getting to the point
that we're going to see some positive
change, " said Bryan Gast,
vice-president of the investigative
services division at the
Équité Association, an insurance
industry-backed not-for-profit.
NOVEMBER
THE APMA WARNS THAT
China is using provisions of
the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade
agreement to get favourable tariff
treatment for its vehicles
built in Mexico. " While we are
sleeping, Chinese entities are
positioning themselves
through direct
investment and
market expansion
in Mexico to displace
market-driven
players in the
North American
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automotive market and weakening
the current supply base
that employs over three million
directly in the region, " said
APMA President Flavio Volpe.
■ ■ ■
OCTOBER
BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
continue to flow into Canada's
battery industry as Northvolt AB
of Sweden commits $7 billion for
its first North American manufacturing
site in Quebec. The site
won out over stiff competition,
Company CEO Peter Carlsson
said. " We were looking at almost
every state in [the] United States,
but we couldn't help glancing
at Quebec, " he said. " It was like
we found the grid; we found the
raw-materials supply; we found
a really, really attractive
city in Montreal. "
Northvolt did not
point directly to what
automakers the new
cell plant would supply.
Northvolt has
booked $55 billion in
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global orders from Audi, BMW,
Porsche, Volvo and truckmaker
Scania, Carlsson said.
■ ■ ■
With rising vehicle invenSEPTEMBER
FORD
JOINS THE BATTERY
bandwagon, announcing a
$1.2-billion plant in Bécancour,
Que., with partners BM Co.
and SK On Co. The automaker's
first investment in Quebec
will produce material to power
Ford EVs, including some of
its future pickups, said Lisa
Drake, vice-president of EV
Industrialization for Ford
Model e. " This facility is a cornerstone
for Ford Motor Co. in
all of North America. That's
how important this plant is
to us, " she said in Bécancour,
midway between Montreal and
Quebec City. ■ ■ ■
Detroit Three
autoworkers have lost signifitories
and sales starting to inch
upward, the " glory years " of
high margins, a take-it-or-leaveit
attitude and low interest rates
appear be over. The result,
according to Saskatchewan
dealer group executive Michael
Wyant, is a return to normal,
but more difficult, sales practicThere's
a key question
es. ■ ■ ■
about Ford's historic deal with
Unifor that saw workers get double-digit
pay increases: Could
Unifor have bargained harder to
get even more? A low 54-per-cent
ratification vote suggests yes.
Unifor have bargained harder to
get even more? A low 54-per-cent
Automotive News Canada
announces the 35 winners of its
2023 Best Dealerships To Work
For program, expanded from 25
retailers in 2022.
■ ■ ■
An analysis of the parallel
labour negotiations between
Unifor and the Detroit Three
in Canada, and the UAW and
the Detroit Three in the United
States, suggests neither union
secured better deals overall, but
that each got the best deal in
decades. " These are head and
shoulders above anything that's
been negotiated in the auto sector
since well before the '08
recession, " said Barry Eidlin,
associate professor of sociology
at Montreal's McGill University.
■ ■ ■
As EV adoption grows and
brand loyalty erodes among
North American consumers,
dealers in Canada are urged to
embrace the prospect of representing
brands from China such
as BYD, Chery Automobile and
others, analysts said. ■ ■ ■
Columbia's revised sales mandates
call for 100 per cent of
sales of new light-duty vehicles
to be ZEVs by 2035, five years
ahead of the original date but in
line with the federal ZEV mandate.
Interim targets of 26 per
cent by 2026 and 90 per cent by
2030 are also tougher. The current
B.C. law calls for 10-percent
ZEV sales by 2025 and 30
per cent by 2030. The new targets,
which could become law
in spring, are also significantly
tougher than the federal mandates
of 20 per cent by 2026 and
60 per cent by 2030.
DECEMBER
STELLANTIS REPLACES
Jeep brand chief Jim Morrison
amid struggling sales in North
America. Maserati North
America CEO William Peffer
becomes the new head of Jeep on
the continent, while Morrison is
named to lead the newly formed
Jeep Performance Parts Business.
Morrison, a Fredericton, N.B.,
native, had steered the Jeep
brand since June 2019. The changes
are effective Dec. 1.
■ ■ ■
After almost two decades, the
Chrysler 300, Dodge Challenger
and Dodge Charger end their
production run at
Stellantis' assembly
plant in Brampton.
Ralph Gilles, the company's
chief design
officer, reflects on
the vehicles as well
as their endurance
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despite the company's numerous
changes in ownership. Brampton
Assembly, meanwhile, begins
a lengthy retooling to build
electrified vehicles. ■ ■ ■
Ford
British
Canada CEO Bev Goodman and
APMA President Flavio Volpe
are among Automotive News
Canada's 2023 All Stars. ■ ■ ■
A November sales jump of 20.7
per cent signals that the auto
industry is finally clear of inventory
shortages. November's total
is down just three per cent from
the same month in pre-pandemic
2019. Improving vehicle availability
and strong pent-up demand
from the pandemic are continuing
to fuel sales in the face of
rising prices, said DesRosiers
Automotive Consultants Inc.
Managing Partner Andrew King.
- ANC
Automotive News Canada - January 2024

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