A General Motors plant in Ingersoll, Ont., has been converted into an assembly line for electric delivery vans, making it the first full-scale electric vehicle-making facility in Canada.
The first BrightDrop Zevo 600 rolled off the line at the CAMI plant on Monday, marking the reopening of the facility that was temporarily shuttered in May in order to retool itself from making internal combustion engines into one that builds electric vehicles.
“We are fully committed to an all-electric future,” GM Canada president Marissa West told CBC News in an interview. “We’re seeing a really high customer demand.”
Representatives of the provincial and federal governments, which each kicked in $259 million to help the automaker upgrade the facility, were on hand for a media event commemorating the opening. The total price tag for the GM’s upgrades to its facilities in Ontario in Ingersoll and Oshawa was $2 billion, GM has said previously.
BrightDrop is a unit of GM that focuses on building delivery vehicles for commercial customers, not passengers. Prior to the CAMI upgrading, GM made the BrightDrop vans on a very limited basis at another facility in Michigan.
Similarly, other electric vehicles have been made on a limited basis in Canada, but nothing on the scale of what GM has planned with the BrightDrop launch.
Banking on electric future
After decades as a key hub in the North American auto industry, Canada’s status as a car-making powerhouse has slipped in recent years, as the major car companies have slowly cut back production at facilities scattered across southern Ontario.
The last round of union negotiations in late 2020, however, made it clear that both sides see the industry’s future is electric, and Monday’s unveiling is likely the first in what’s set to be a long line of Canadian-made EVs.
“We really believe that we’re at an inflection point where EVs are becoming much more mainstream,” West said.
Growing market
Though niche right now, electric vehicles are taking up more and more space on Canadian roads. Up to five per cent of all vehicles in Canada are either fully electric or hybrid, and that ratio is expected to increase in the coming years.
By 2035, the government insists that all new vehicles in Canada will be electric, an ambitious target for a little over 12 years from now, but Monday’s announcement brings that one step closer.
GM Canada’s President on the future of auto manufacturing in Canada
Canada’s first electric vehicle assembly line is up and running in Ingersoll, Ontario. The CBC’s Nisha Patel sat down with GM Canada’s President, Marissa West, to find out what this transformation means for Canada’s auto industry.
According to West, GM has a similar timeline for its operations around the world, with the company forecasting its entire global fleet to be free of tailpipe emissions by 2035.
Jacquie Richards, the quality launch manager at the facility, says the future is now, when it comes to electric vehicles.
The vehicle itself, the BrightDrop Zevo 600, will be used primarily by commercial customers including FedEx, Walmart, DHL, Verizon and others.
“I’m excited to see this vehicle we’re making delivering packages in our neighbourhood,” Richards said.
Production will start slow, with just a few thousand vehicles annually, but that’s expected to ramp up to 50,000 at year by 2025.
After a rough few years for the industry, Mike Van Boekel, chair of Unifor Local 88, which represents the plant’s hourly workers, said it’s nice to be positive about the future again.
He said roughly 700 people who were employed at the CAMI facility have voluntarily retired in the past two years, but the new work means anyone who had a job there before who wants one now can have one.
The plant was idled in May for the refurbishment, but as of Monday, there were about 400 workers on the line — with maybe more to come.
“We’ll actually have to hire for the third shift, which is good news for people looking for work as well,” he told CBC News. If that happens, there could be as many as 1,600 people working at the CAMI plant by the end of next year.
With the GM news and other initiatives about critical mineral mines and battery facilities, Canada’s automotive sector is pinning its hopes on the future on electrification, and automotive consultant Sam Fiorani says that’s a smart move.
About 400 people are working the line making electric vans at the CAMI plant in Ingersoll today, but that is expected to ramp up in the coming months and years. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Countries like Norway and others are well ahead of North America in terms of electric vehicle adoption, but consumer appetite is growing, the founder of Auto Forecast Solutions said.
“The U.S. Canada, and much of the rest of the world are going to be behind them. But we’ll get there over the next 20 years.”
A big problem facing the industry for now isn’t demand, but supply. “Supply of vehicles has been so tight that dealers can offer whatever they want,” he said. “I’ve walked into dealerships where they tack $5,000 onto the list price of a car; it’s just outrageous at the moment.”
But as inventories slowly build up, there will be more and more vehicles for consumers in the key price range of $20,000 to $40,000, which is when things will really take off. And Fiorani says Canada is poised to make more than its fair share of them.
“With the market in the U.S. moving very rapidly toward EVs, the Canadian industry will be really well-situated for providing a lot of vehicles for the U.S.,” he said. “They’re well-positioned to get more than their share. I think Mexico might be behind at the moment.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
