In February, a KPMG study reported that 68% of Canadians who plan to buy a new vehicle in the next five years say they are likely to buy an EV. Younger drivers are more charged up than their parents: 79% of drivers aged 18 to 44 say they’re likely to buy an EV in the next five years, versus just 58% of adults over 45.

“Canada’s automotive industry is nearing the tipping point,” says KPMG partner Peter Hatges. But with consumers admitting they’re concerned about “range” issues and the limited availability of charging stations, Hatges says the onus lies with manufacturers and governments “to shift gears not only to meet the expected surge in EV sales, but to invest heavily in the necessary infrastructure.”

Manufacturers are accelerating into the curve, with bold production commitments and technology breakthroughs that kindle consumer confidence.

General Motors got the jump on Ottawa in January by announcing it will phase out all gas-powered vehicles by 2035. GM is spending an additional US$27 billion to ensure EVs make up 40% of its models by the end of 2025. The auto giant also promised to power its U.S. sites with 100% renewable energy by 2030 – five years ahead of schedule.

By trading in its century-old internal-combustion technologies for EVs, GM is gambling that it can transfer its market leadership to an all-new industry. But some analysts argue GM had no choice. David Keith, professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, asked Quartz News, “Do you want to be the company that bends metal in a very low-margin business or a technology business with recurring revenue and a blue-sky valuation?”

The race is on. In March, Volvo one-upped GM by vowing to phase out production of all gas-powered vehicles – including hybrids – by 2030.

“There is no long-term future for cars with an internal combustion engine,” said Volvo’s chief technology officer.

But the big headlines belong to Israeli lithium-ion battery company StoreDot, developer of the world’s first EV fast-charging system. It can “fill your tank” in five minutes – versus the current minimum of half an hour. StoreDot’s breakthrough comes from replacing the electron bottleneck in most car batteries – their graphite electrodes – with germanium-based semiconductor nanoparticles that can absorb much faster flows. Eventually, the company hopes to use silicon, which will bring costs down to match those of today’s lithium-ion batteries.

StoreDot, whose investors include Daimler, BP and Samsung, has already produced 1,000 batteries, which were sent to carmakers for testing. The World Economic Forum is a fan, declaring that StoreDot’s technology “could transform electric vehicle uptake by tackling range anxiety.”

Other companies developing fast-charging batteries include Tesla, Enevate, EC Power and Sila Nanotechnologies. EC Power founder Chao-Yang Wang told The Guardian he thinks fast-charging batteries will hit the mass market in three years: “They will not be more expensive; in fact, they allow automakers to downsize the onboard battery while still eliminating range anxiety, thereby dramatically cutting down the vehicle battery cost.”

Want to buy Canadian? Three global automakers have announced big EV investments in Ontario. Ford will spend $1.2 billion to begin building five battery-powered models in Oakville, while General Motors will invest nearly $1 billion to produce electric commercial vans in Ingersoll. Fiat Chrysler has said it will invest up to $1.5 billion to begin EV production in Windsor.

Change can happen faster than we think – especially when it’s been delayed too long. KPMG concluded its recent report with this advice to people who rely on the traditional auto industry for their living: “Don’t just brace for change. Actively seek it to avoid being left behind.”

The post GM, Volvo accelerate into EV curve appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“That’s a fact,” barks Jerry Dias, national president of Unifor, which represents workers in Canada’s automotive assembly sector.

Dias doesn’t drive an electric vehicle but is quick to add, “I will get one when my members build one.”

That day is approaching.

This past fall, Dias and his team finalized agreements to bring EV production to Oakville and Windsor, Ontario. In a wide-ranging interview, the head of the country’s largest private-sector union tells me how he lobbied key players to secure deals worth $1.95 billion at Ford and up to $1.58 billion at Fiat Chrysler.

Dias relishes telling the story. He stresses that the investments were the product of a remarkable alignment. “You had the federal government looking at major infrastructure spending, you had a pandemic, [and] the whole discussion of what does ‘build back better’ really look like.”

Unifor had long supported electric cars, but not all decision-makers were receptive. “[In 2018] you had Trudeau talking about greening the economy and you had Doug Ford saying the total opposite.” But in spring 2020, word leaked that Ford Oakville was planning to discontinue the Edge SUV. “So I contacted Dearborn [Ford’s headquarters in Michigan] and said, ‘What’s going on?’” Dias discovered the Edge would indeed be phased out in Canada.

“So then we really started to push the narrative,” he recalls. “I spoke with the Prime Minister’s Office, with [Infrastructure Minister] Catherine McKenna, with [Industry Minister] Nav Bains.” Dias told them EVs are the future. “About 3% of the world market is electric vehicles, but by 2040 it will be 50%.”

He believes Ford had little choice. “They weren’t going to close the only assembly plant in Canada. There would have been a war!” he says. “I got a call from Jim Hackett, who was the outgoing CEO from Ford, and then I got a call from Jim Farley, the incoming CEO, telling me [that] we’ll find a solution.”

While the Ford and Fiat Chrysler deals are seen as environmental victories, Unifor’s agreement with the third of the Big Three is problematic. In November, GM announced it will invest up to $1 billion in its Canadian operations to build traditional pickup trucks. I ask Dias how this squares with his climate commitments.

“We needed to get people back to work. If it’s 50% EV by 2040, it’s still 50% [internal combustion] … the key thing is to have your hands in both pots. This was about a short-term solution with a vision to the long-term.”

Dias is a bridge between conflicting worlds. He calls himself an environmentalist but represents oil workers. He acknowledges the planet is moving away from fossil fuel but thinks a complete transformation in 20 years is “too aggressive.” He sees values in nuclear power as a climate solution but feels the technology gets a free pass while wind is unfairly criticized.

“We have a wind turbine on our education centre [property],” he says. “There is not an issue that creates more dissent with our union in the community than that wind turbine. You’ve got a nuclear power station 10 miles down the road that if it went sideways would blow up the entire community. But there’s no debate on that; the debate is about my one turbine.”

Dias was born into a union family in 1958. His father worked at De Havilland Aircraft, becoming president of the local in 1967. Dias began his own career at De Havilland, spent a year at York University (“I hated it”), then returned to the company in 1978 and became shop steward. “My parents come from Guyana,” he explains. “In Canada they say, ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ In Guyana they say, ‘Goats don’t make sheep.’”

Perhaps Dias’s leadership is best demonstrated by his participation in a January 2020 picket line at Regina’s Co-op oil refinery. There to support locked-out workers fighting for pensions, he was arrested for mischief and sent to jail – a situation no Canadian labour leader had faced since postal workers’ president Jean-Claude Parrot rejected back-to-work legislation and went to prison in 1980. “I would never expect our members to stand up to the police on a picket line without doing it myself,” Dias says. “You have to lead from the front.”

Dias’s worldview is, finally, pragmatic. In 2024, Fiat Chrysler’s Windsor plant will indeed produce electric vehicles – but also internal-combustion vehicles. “This is all about options,” he argues. “You can fly two kites at the same time.”

None of this detracts from his role in launching Canada’s entry into the major leagues of EV manufacturing.

Dias doesn’t drive a Tesla. He’s driving something greater.

Gideon Forman is a transportation policy analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation.

The post Jerry on the job appeared first on Corporate Knights.

It’s too early to predict how COVID-19 will reshape the future. The travel, entertainment, hospitality and personal-services sectors have already been devastated. A Canadian Federation of Independent Business survey found that 32% of owners who had shut down their businesses in March were unsure if they would ever reopen.

The media has also identified the first winners of this global reckoning. Setting aside for a moment the immeasurable personal tragedies caused by the virus, here are some preliminary results:

• Greater concern for the environment could be COVID’s legacy, wrote columnist Gwynne Dyer. “The clean air over China’s cities in the past month, thanks to an almost total shutdown of the big sources of pollution, has saved 20 times as many Chinese lives as COVID-19 has taken . . . People will remember this when the filthy air comes back and want something done about it.”

• Movements for social change may be empowered by governments’ rapid moves to restrict behaviour and unleash financial support. At TheConversation.com, U.K. economist Simon Mair said the virus “is expanding the economic imagination. As governments and citizens take steps that three months ago seemed impossible, our ideas about how the world works could change rapidly.”

• Retail and food workers are finally getting some respect, with companies such as Maple Leaf Foods, Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro and Walmart granting raises to frontline staff, introducing the concept of “hero pay.” Though Corporate Knights asks whether $2 extra an hour is enough for the grocery employees putting their lives on the line. Canadian banks are giving frontline employees an extra $50 a day and additional paid time off; TD Bank Group is giving bonuses of up to $1,000.

• Tycoons such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Ma and Elon Musk, in most cases, polished their reputations by funding hospitals, medical supplies and research. But the Canadian billionaire community, wrote the Toronto Star’s David Olive, “has hardly been heard from on arguably the greatest crisis Canada has ever faced.”

• Manufacturers of everything from hockey skates to gin began retooling to deliver personal protective equipment to those who need it most. Heavyweights that have stepped up include H&M, Ford, GM, Dyson and Gucci’s parent company, Kering. Several companies have been saluted for establishing COVID relief funds, including Facebook, which set up a US$100 million relief fund for businesses in 30 countries, and meal-delivery companies, whose services helped thousands of restaurants stay open. Facebook also set up an additional US$100 million fund to support news media. Sony, Netflix and Amazon created their own US$100 million global relief funds — though striking Amazon employees say not enough is being done to keep them safe.

And then there are the hidden heroes: the workers delivering essential services across dozens of sectors, as well as anyone who is stepping up to support aging relatives during the crisis, check up on their neighbours, shop for the quarantined, donate money or haul canned goods to food banks. We’re banging on our pots and pans in thanks for you, too.

The post COVID response: Who rode first wave in new culture of conscience? appeared first on Corporate Knights.