[ad_1]
Most people rarely think of cars when they think of Canada. But this country, known for hockey, maple syrup and endless wilderness, is one of North America’s largest automobile producers. And with the growing importance of electric vehicles, Canada wants to breathe new life into the automotive industry and preserve its more than 100-year-old tradition.
Canada’s automotive industry is primarily located in Ontario and Quebec, with Windsor, Ontario claiming the title of Canada’s Automotive Capital.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkins said, “Canada has been the automotive capital since the country’s first car factory opened around 1904.
Across the river from Detroit, Windsor has benefited from its proximity to the United States and the presence of three major automakers headquartered there.
Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler) and South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solutions (LGES) announced last year that they would invest more than C$5 billion ($3.5 billion) to build a new large-scale battery manufacturing plant in Windsor. . The factory, he expects to be operational by 2024, will create an estimated 2,500 jobs.
“This is a massive, game-changing investment, and I’m not even sure those two words are big enough to describe how important they are to our community,” says Dilkins. “This will affect generations. [Companies] We look to the new world of automobiles and start looking to Windsor Essex as a place to do business.
Investments by Stellantis and LGES are part of a larger trend of over C$17 billion announced for investments in Ontario’s automotive sector since early 2021.
“Ontario has made the largest new investment in automotive production in its history over the past two years,” said Flavio Volpe, president of the Canadian Association of Automotive Suppliers.
Most of this investment, worth nearly C$13 billion, was spent on electricity and battery production. And by passing the Inflation Reduction Act, US lawmakers have further boosted Canada’s EV ambitions.
“This is good news for the Canadian people, the green economy and the growing EV manufacturing sector,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. President Biden said in a tweet shortly after signing the law.
The law includes tax credits for EV buyers, but only if the majority of vehicles are built and assembled in North America and their batteries use locally mined components. Limited. According to GM Canada’s David Paterson, this could give Canada an advantage over the US and Mexico.
“What enters us [sic] The battery is the cathode active material, made primarily of nickel and other important minerals that are abundant here in Canada,” he says.
“As demand for gasoline falls, so does demand for minerals, and Canada is an economy built on natural resources.”
Billions of dollars have been invested by the Canadian federal and Ontario governments to accelerate the automotive industry’s transition to battery-powered EVs.
“Our incentive is that you have a job because we invest about $2.5 billion of taxpayer money in these. [car companies,” says Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.
The recent investment streak is a welcome sign for an industry that has gone through many ups and downs. Increased automation and competition from lower-wage regions have led to plant closures and job losses over the past two decades.
“We have been coming from a whole generation since about 2000, watching this critical sector decline. We have seen disinvestment in the sector, we have seen job losses in the sector, we have seen plants closed and communities are basically disappearing,” says Angelo DiCaro, research director for Unifor, a union representing about 230,000 Canadian auto workers.
The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA for short, contributed to this downturn as car companies moved their assembly lines to places like Mexico or the U.S. Southeast to cut costs. The USMAC, which replaced NAFTA in 2020, has somewhat leveled the playing field by boosting regional content requirements and instituting a minimum wage of at least $16 an hour.
DiCaro says that despite the uncertainty surrounding certain jobs that could be lost in this transition to electric vehicles, Canada’s auto workers have a sense of optimism and hope.
According to government data, the auto sector plays a key role in Canada’s economy, contributing CA$16 billion to its gross domestic product (GDP). With nearly 500,000 direct or indirect jobs, automotive is one of the country’s largest manufacturing sectors and one of its largest export industries.
Volkswagen and Tesla are two companies that have publicly stated they are actively looking at Canada as a potential site for a new battery and / or assembly plant. They would join Ford, General Motors, Honda, Stellantis and Toyota, which already have production facilities in Ontario.
“The success of the [Ontario] Government and Federal Government [sic] It is never defined by what you land on at the moment. Flavio Volpe says: “It’s about whether we can finance a sixth or seventh automaker. It’s about our vision being rhetorical and convincing the world’s best automaker that the future is going through Ontario. I mean.”
Copyright 2023 NPR. For more information, please visit https://www.npr.org.
[ad_2]
Source link
