General Motors once sold more than half the cars in the U.S.

It’s hard to believe just how dominant GM was in the middle of the 20th century. Consumers would go “GM for life,” migrating through the company’s various car brands, from Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick, culminating with a Cadillac when they reached the pinnacle of upper-middle-class mobility. 

That success came to a grinding halt during the height of the financial crisis in 2009 when General Motors declared bankruptcy. At the time, the automaker was written off for its seeming lack of foresight on electrification, pricing and investments.

Facing another looming global recession, GM is hoping for a different outcome this time around. Earlier this week, I spoke with GM Canada president Marissa West at the Toronto Global Forum about the important role she thinks Canada can play in securing GM’s future.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

SHIFT: [GM CEO] Mary Barra was in Oshawa, Ont., this week. How Canada is fitting into GM’s overall vision for the future?

WEST: It’s integrating right into GM’s vision and our future in a couple of really important ways. 

Our [Ingersoll, Ont. assembly plant, CAMI,] is where we’re launching the first full electric-vehicle plant in Canada with our BrightDrop product. 

Until recently, the majority of the cathode active material processing has happened in Asia. We have to bring that capability for processing to North America. And so selecting that particular [joint venture with South Korea battery-chemical maker POSCO] site, which is in Quebec was really strategic for General Motors. It’s positioned very well relative to the battery plants that we’ve already announced, as well as where we see the future of our battery plants existing. There’s a lot of talent in Quebec, there’s a lot of accessibility in terms of logistics to ship the finished cathode active products. They have access to really low-emission power generation, and low-cost power generation. 

Right now, we have a huge demand for our truck products. And we have a need to continue to infuse profitability into our company so that we can fund the future. And so our strategy at Oshawa, Ont., was very much “We’re funding the electric-vehicle future.”

SHIFT: How is software going to play a big role in energy control, and what are you looking for in terms of talent in that area?

WEST: We recognized the volume of software and AI talent who were graduating from the universities in the Greater Toronto Area, was second only to Silicon Valley. We have over 1,200 engineers [at the Markham, Ont., GM Technical Centre] now. It’s the second-largest technical-engineering operation that we have in North America. 

Our vehicles are becoming more and more based on software, both with the battery controls and this path to autonomous vehicles. 

Our Canadian Technical Centre is foundational in developing that. And as we look toward the future of the software-defined vehicle, [it] is going to enable our vehicles to be continuously updated and offer features to customers, and support what we really see as the future of the automotive sector. 

SHIFT: What do you see as the dealership model of the future?

WEST: There are some customers [who are] pretty comfortable to get very far along in the vehicle purchase process online by themselves with their computer. There’s also a huge population of customers who aren’t there yet, or maybe will never be. They value knowing where they’re going to take their vehicle when they have a problem.

So the future retail model is establishing the tools to do as much of the buying process online as you’re comfortable doing, but ultimately transacting through a dealer. 

We’re spending US$750 million over the next few years to deploy over 44,000 Level 2 chargers, and the way we’re deploying them is through our dealer network. 

The beauty of dealers is they know their communities very well. They’re going to work to find the right place to put these 10 chargers; some of them will be at their dealerships. Some of them might be at the Starbucks; they might be at the grocery store. 

That would be an investment of maybe the dealer, maybe business owners within the communities. And so the model varies a little bit depending on the situation, but it’s absolutely a shared investment.

SHIFT: GM recently announced a stake in an Australian mining company, and I’m sure a lot of mining companies based in Canada would love to do something like that. What does Canada need to do to make sure it’s staying competitive in terms of providing critical minerals to [auto manufacturers]?

WEST: We need to be able to get these deals done quickly. GM is going to have capacity for a million electric vehicles in North America in 2025. We know down to the gram how much of each critical mineral that’s going to require.

The best thing that the Canadian government can do is help to eliminate the red tape and help to make sure that the mining companies for the critical minerals are supported in their capacity and their ability to partner so that we can get that done.

As we look at the implications of the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, [it’s] a really important time to make sure that Canada isn’t left behind, because the other parts of North America are moving very, very quickly to make sure that we’re supporting and making the electric-vehicle future a reality. Canada’s uniquely positioned that they have the materials of the raw minerals, they have the talent, and we really just need to unleash that so that it can remain a really critical part of the fully integrated North American auto industry.

(Earlier this year, I compiled a complete rundown of Canada’s EV battery supply chain. The Logic subscribers can read it here.) 

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