Global Courant
The president of General Motors Canada says she would like to see provincial and federal governments provide more consistent incentives to people who want to buy electric vehicles to compete with options in the United States, and to increase adoption rates for those types of vehicles .
Marissa West told CTV question period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview aired Sunday that while the various levels of government work closely with electric vehicle manufacturers, there needs to be a consistent mechanism for Canada to “keep pace” with the United States.
The federal government – along with some provincial governments, such as Ontario and Quebec – has pledged billions of dollars to companies like General Motors and Volkswagen in an effort to attract business and secure the supply chain of Canadian EV batteries.
The governments of Canada and Ontario earlier this year announced a deal with Volkswagen to let the company build its first overseas battery plant in southwestern Ontario, costing more than $13 billion in grants.
Meanwhile, recent polls from Nanos Research show that most Canadians support governments that provide incentives to foreign auto companies, with more than half of respondents saying they support or somewhat support this support.
The economic boost is in line with the federal government’s ambitious targets for sales of zero-emission vehicles: 20 percent of vehicle sales should be electric by 2026, 60 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2035.
According to Statistics Canada, 7.2 percent of new light-duty vehicles sold in the first half of 2022 were electric.
West said GM “shares the government’s vision” that all light vehicles will be electric by 2035, adding that the company is working to ensure there are options at different price points to make it more accessible to consumers.
“It’s a journey, and we’ll continue to work with the government to get some support as we’re seeing in the US and as we’re seeing at some level with some consumer incentives as we’re in the early stages of getting our Canadian customers into the affordability equation,” West said.
“It’s certainly part of us (as a manufacturer) to have the affordable vehicles, but we also appreciate working with the government to create some of those opportunities, with some incentives, to support in the transition as well she also said.
West said she hopes those incentives will come from a combination of federal and provincial governments, especially since “stackable” grants from both levels of government make “really meaningful.”
“It really brings us to the level we’re seeing in the US, and that’s been very attractive for customers to consider electric vehicles and support the adoption rate,” she said.
West added that there are still obstacles consumers face, namely what she called a “chicken or the egg situation” when it comes to the “availability” and “robustness” of charging infrastructure, especially when it comes to car journeys and highway scenarios.
Canada is competing with the US Inflation Reduction Act, which offers billions of dollars in energy incentives south of the border, including for electric vehicles.
When the IRA passed in August 2022, Canada was able to secure an electric vehicle carve-out, essentially expanding incentives from US to North American.
“So we’re really looking forward to Canada continuing to keep pace and creating an environment that’s attractive to make the investments… to create those jobs and also to support the consumers so they have the confidence to buy the EVs to buy,” Wester said.
“What we need is a compelling mechanism that we can rely on that provides some degree of consistency, and then we can confidently continue to invest in Canada and ensure that Canada remains at the forefront and at the heart of the automotive industry through this transformation here .”
West said she believes North America is at a “tipping point” in its overall EV strategy, and that GM is “well on its way to this all-electric future.”
With files from CTV’s Question Period Senior Producer Stephanie Ha
