China’s electric vehicles are coming to North America at a terrible time |
China’s electric vehicles are coming to North America at a terrible time
Stellantis NV is in early discussions to build Chinese electric vehicles in Brampton, Ontario. The global car company proposes to assemble the vehicles from knockdown kits supplied by its Chinese partner, Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology. The European-based auto giant bought a 20 percent stake in Leapmotor in 2023.
Unifor, the union at the now idle plant, and the Canadian government have rejected the Stellantis plan because they want full manufacturing operations in Brampton, as the company had promised when it took Canadian subsidies.
Producing cars from the Chinese kits would not require many workers and would result in very little added Canadian value. Flavio Volpe, the head of the Canadian Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, compared knockdown kits to IKEA furniture.
“They are manufactured in Sweden, boxed and exported to stores abroad,” he told Automotive News Canada. “If you buy a sofa in Montreal and put it together, is that manufacturing a sofa in Canada?”
Whether or not the Stellantis proposal is accepted, Chinese electric vehicles are coming to North America. China’s vehicles are certainly welcome in Canada.
Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed, as part of his January trade deal with Beijing, to drop his country’s 100 percent tariffs on 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles to 6.1 percent in the first year of the arrangement. The quota is set to rise to 70,000 vehicles annually by 2030. Carney’s government also announced it wanted joint ventures with Chinese car companies “with trusted partners.”
Given the small size of the Canadian car market, Carney is apparently hoping that Canadian-made vehicles........