A car is charged at a station for electric vehicles on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 1, 2019.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Stellantis NV STLA-N says it will spend $3.6-billion to retool its Ontario plants to make zero-emissions vehicles – the latest announcement from an automaker aimed at hastening the Canadian auto sector’s shift away from internal combustion engines.
With up to $1-billion in funding from the federal and Ontario governments, Stellantis plans to refit its Windsor and Brampton plants to make hybrid or electric cars and expand to three shifts a day. The automaker said it will also build its first North American battery lab in Windsor.
At a news conference announcing the investment on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the two plants will become global leaders. He said the retooling will be beneficial to both Canadians and the environment. “Not only are we growing a world-leading auto industry creating hundreds of jobs, and securing thousands more, we’re keeping our air clean by building and driving more EVs here at home,” he said.
Mark Stewart, Stellantis North America’s chief operating officer, said the move supports the company’s global push to offer 25 electric vehicles that will account for 53 per cent of sales by 2030. The automaker is spending $45-billion through 2025 as it races with rivals to meet consumer demand and government limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
This is “more good news and stability for Canadian operations,” Mr. Stewart told reporters at the news conference in Windsor.
The Canadian auto sector is in the midst of an electric evolution. In March, the federal and provincial governments said they would give hundreds of millions of dollars to Stellantis and LG Energy Solution for a $5-billion plant in Windsor that will make batteries for electric vehicles. The investment is the largest in the history of Canada’s auto industry.
Other automakers in Canada are gearing up for an electrified future, too. Ford Motor Co. plans to produce electric cars at its Oakville, Ont., factory by 2024, with a $1.8-billion investment that includes $580-million in taxpayer money. By December, General Motors is set to begin making the electric cargo van the BrightDrop EV600 at its retooled plant in Ingersoll, Ont.
GM and POSCO Chemicals are also building a factory in Bécancour, Que., that will make material for the batteries that power GM’s electric lineup. This includes the Chevrolet Silverado EV, GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq.
“We’re in this really pivotal moment, where Canada is coming back and we’re regaining our position as a top auto-manufacturing country,” said Joanna Kyriazis, a senior policy adviser at Clean Energy Canada.
While Ms. Kyriazis welcomed Stellantis’ latest announcement, she said she would have liked to see the automaker commit to a vision for its Ontario plants focused squarely on electric vehicles rather than moving toward what Stellantis called a “flexible multienergy vehicle architecture.”
The Prime Minister’s presence in Windsor on Monday is in line with his government’s efforts of late to show that it is serious about forcing a faster change in Canadians’ driving habits and reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
In their March emissions-reduction plan and their April budget, the federal Liberals detailed initiatives aimed at greening the transportation sector, which accounts for more than a quarter of the country’s emissions.
Despite pushback from automakers, the government said it will ramp up its ambitions when it comes to sales mandates for zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), including by introducing a new short-term target of 20 per cent of all light-duty vehicle sales by 2026. That will climb to 60 per cent in 2030 and 100 per cent in 2035. The government said it wants to see ZEVs make up 35 per cent of medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sales by 2030.
In Canada, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and battery electric vehicles made up 6.2 per cent of new vehicle registrations in the fourth quarter of 2021, up from 4 per cent in the same period in 2020 and 2.9 per cent in the same period in 2019.
To make the move away from internal combustion engines more affordable for Canadians, the Liberals are expanding the incentives program for ZEVs to include more expensive options, such as vans, trucks and SUVs.
Mr. Stewart of Stellantis said the minivan plant in Windsor will be retooled in 2023 to make “multienergy” vehicle components for several models. The Brampton plant, which currently builds muscle cars, will be refit to make electric components and one electric vehicle. Mr. Stewart said it is too early to say which vehicles will be made in Ontario.
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CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
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