Greg, what's your view of it from Canada? Are we seeing similar things there?

The most interesting thing in all of this from a Canadian perspective is we had at one point electric vehicle sales mandate in place, meaning a certain percentage of volume by every automaker had to be an EV and that percentage increased every year until 100% in 2035.

Suddenly that was rolled back last year by Prime Minister Mark Carney with the promise of new guidelines and new regulations that would focus on tailpipe emissions.

Well, guess what? The EV mandate was officially killed earlier this year and no replacement was made.

So you can bet our federal government is keeping an eye on U.S. policy and how that affects U.S. manufacturing and what it is they build.

V8s, muscle cars.

I'm near Windsor.

Greg, how serious is this Canada-EU push and what would it actually mean for the auto industry specifically?

What does this MOU with Rochelle actually tell us about where Stellantis' head is at on Brampton?

Look, as you and I talked 90 minutes ago, a news conference in Toronto wrapped up with Lana Payne, head of Unifor, conducting things.

And just prior to that, Stellantis reached out to its employees and essentially said the plant is no longer viable.

There is no sustainable operations that Stellantis can provide in Brampton.

That comes as a bit of a shock to me, but it tells me that Stellantis at least appears on the surface to have cashed in its chips on Brampton.

Doesn't think it can build anything in the future.

Wants out, wants to sell it.

Now, Greg, how is Unifor taking it?

Walk us through what that exemption means for the industry and why it matters.

Well, it matters because the North American auto industry is so incredibly integrated.

Parts cross the border between Canada and the United States multiple times, upwards of seven times.

Seats are a great example.

They cross the border many, many times.

Striker plates that are used indoors.

upwards of seven times before a finished vehicle rolls off the line, roughly 30 to 50% of all content in Canada made vehicles, depending on, depending on the automaker and the factory and its location comes from the United States.

Walk us through your argument.

What does that gap tell us about where things actually stand?

Look, this is as close as we've ever been to a deal, I think.

But what we do know is Donald Trump has said they've won the war in Iran at least 10 times.

So do we really have a deal in place? Maybe, maybe not, because we know he has said multiple times with multiple countries, we have a deal.

And then there is pen to paper after that.

So I think we're close.

I think there's been concessions made.

What are the stakes for Canadian manufacturers and for the entire North American industry?

What are you watching for?

Yeah, so for your listeners who don't know, pattern bargaining in Canada by Unifor is the go-to technique.

So they bargain with Ford, they get a $10,000 signing bonus, a 3% wage increase in each of the next three years.

And it's expected that the next two automakers, General Motors now and Stellantis later will follow that pattern.

But what I'm watching is the investment because each automaker is different when it comes to what product are we going to give you? How much are we going to invest in your footprint in Ontario? And when it comes to GM, I just don't see a lot.

So all eyes are obviously on the Cami plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, which used to build the electric bright drop commercial delivery vans.

But GM killed that product last October.

Is that a fair way of characterizing it?

I mean, what are you hearing about the whole negotiations going on right now?

Well, I just heard that Mexico and the United States have actually sat down, had formal talks at least four times to discuss USMCA and Canada at best has sat down once to have discussions so this is an instant replay of what happened in Trump's first term when Mexico and the United States kind of put this thing together themselves and then tacked Canada on at the end I feel like this is deja vu all over again to quote Yogi Berra since I'm always a baseball guy yeah appreciate that they just Canada is taking it slowly.

I think we have leverage in this.

I think we had leverage last time, but it is just replaying itself out.

And now the scary thing or the worst case scenario next to being canceled altogether is going to play out in that we have to negotiate this thing for the next 10 consecutive years because the United States didn't renew it for a 16-year term, which means we have to go through these talks.

these reviews, these negotiations every year unless all three countries agree to finally renew this free trade agreement.

And I don't see that on the horizon, at least not in the immediate future.

This is not good for our industry.

What does that mean and what does it mean in practice for an automaker that's trying to decide right now whether to build a plant in Canada or Mexico?

what this appears to mean is we're going to go through this song and dance every single year for a decade.

What we've been going through for the last 18 months or so now happens on an annual basis.

And so then you have to ask yourself as the automakers are, how do we plan investment? How do we plan product rollout? How do we allot product and production across all three countries in North America? It becomes really difficult to, to plan 3, 5, 7, and 10 years out when and where you're going to build vehicles when you don't know if they're tariff-free, you don't know if there's reciprocal tariffs still in Canada, you don't know if there are 232 tariffs in America.

All of that now is uncertainty, which any business, not just the auto business, Can't stand and makes it really difficult to plan, be productive, be efficient and run sort of as seamlessly as the North American auto industry has over the last 30 years or so.

This is a real problem for automakers and for politicians.

It's now we have to sit down at the table every year.

So is there still a chance that this won't be the case? And could we also see, as you alluded to there, an early renewal? Like, what would it take for all three countries to get there?

And this bridge was one of the solutions in moving goods in the area.

To put it in context for the listeners who don't know, there was an old joke around Windsor that went as follows.

You could get from Quebec to Miami and pass 13 stoplights and 12 of them were on a stretch of basically residential roads leading into Michigan.

And then there was one on the other side of the bridge before you hooked up with the interstate system that could get you all over America and avoiding stoplights.

That is the bottleneck you were talking about, correct? That residential street, essentially.

Exactly why you should have other paths.

The other thing I want to circle back on is you brought it up and I wanted to discuss this.

It was a conservative prime minister and a democratic U.S. president that announced the deal that got together and got this done.

Now, for those listening who aren't familiar with the Gordie Howe Bridge, remind them, you know, why is this so important for the North American auto industry and what is it?

Well, first, it's a second span connecting Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, essentially the two automotive capitals of each respective country, for the most part, at least long known to be the automotive capitals, right? And so for a really long time, we only had the Ambassador Bridge, which anyone who watches Hockey Night in Canada, it's always a prominent feature there when the Red Wings are on.

This connected Windsor and Detroit for almost 100 years now, coming up on 100 years.

It opened in 1929.

But this new bridge is modern.

It is downriver of both cities.

It connects directly the Highway 401, the busiest highway in Canada, with the I-75 in Detroit, one of the busiest highways that runs essentially from Detroit to Miami.

It took took decades to get to where we were just to get a deal to build the bridge in the first place.

All right, Greg, what questions should Canadians be asking about these Chinese EVs and their price points?

I mean, the two words that come to mind are how and why.

How are they so cheap? Why are they so affordable? What makes a Chinese EV so much more affordable than something built by a legacy automaker or a Detroit 3 automaker or something overseas? And there are reasons why they are more affordable.

And it's because China does not necessarily play by the global rules of trade.

They undercut everyone at every turn.

We've seen this in solar panels and steel.

They offload these and dump them and undercut everyone.

What's the concern there?

So, Greg, what are suppliers doing to try to plan around this, considering how volatile the fuel cost situation is right now?

There is not much they can do other than hope and pray, because the way the system works is you're locked into your contract, your transportation contract at a agreed upon rate of fuel.

So in Canada, for example, a dollar sixty five a liter, let's say.

And then if gas spikes by 35 cents or 21% as it has, you've got to pay that.

There's no escaping that.

This is an industry that works on just-in-time delivery.

So you can't stockpile parts and ship them at a later date when fuel goes down.

Now, what are you hearing from suppliers about how long they can sustain these kinds of margin pressures before something breaks?

Did it seem like this very public courtship is gaining any real traction with Korean officials?

I mean, in the room itself, it was pretty muted.

I think everyone's sort of walking on eggshells when it comes to any auto investment in North America.

Essentially, no one wants to upset Donald Trump or upset trade negotiations between Canada and the United States.

So there was no outward applause or approval of this.

Is it gaining traction? I don't know if it's gaining traction.

But I will say, you know, as a basketball coach, I can see the full court press is being employed.

Given that Hyundai already has four North American plants and global overcapacity is an issue, how realistic do you think it is that Ontario's pressure campaign actually results in a new assembly plant?

What surprised you the most about how these industry leaders framed Canada's position heading into the USMCA negotiations?

You know, I don't know if I was really surprised.

It was a lot of the same in that we are a trusted partner with the United States and Mexico, that sort of the status quo has been working, that there's probably not a better deal to be had other than removing the tariffs.

USMCA is by far the best thing to happen to the auto industry as a whole.

Yes, did Ontario and Canada lose manufacturing when NAFTA came into place? Of course it did.

Everyone recognizes that fact.

But you can't argue against the fact that it has built a stable, trusted supply chain from essentially the borders of Ontario all the way down into Mexico.

engaged with right now.

How are they reacting north of the border?

I mean, so far, it's full steam ahead for Toyota building the RAV4.

Part of the reason some of the prices in Canada went up is because Toyota, for example, went all hybrid on all its RAV4s, a little more expensive.

But Toyota has made massive investments in their factories up here, and they're not turning their back on it.

Honda is full steam ahead where they're at now.

And they did move some production to the United States to avoid some reciprocal tariffs and that sort of stuff.

So right now, early on, it doesn't look like much is going to change, but we're still waiting for...

If robots eliminate manufacturing jobs, who will have money to buy cars? Walk us through what you found.

What would it mean for the auto industry if this bridge opening gets delayed or blocked entirely?

What it means is more difficult logistics, less efficiency, and higher costs.

The entire reason this new bridge is being built, and it is built, it's constructed, it's almost ready to open, The reason it's there is to allow automakers and suppliers easier access, quicker access in a just-in-time environment that the auto industry works in.

So we're talking about getting parts from, say, Toledo to Windsor for minivan production.

in a quick, efficient manner.

The problem with the current bridge is that in order to get to it and to any factories in Canada and in Detroit or Metro Detroit is that you have to drive through not residential, but certainly commercial areas.

And so you have a lot of stoplights, a lot of congestion.

What's the reaction been like north of the border to Trump's demand that the US own at least half of the bridge?

All right, Greg, walk us through what this means for the Windsor plan and for battery production in Canada.

Well, the battery plant in Windsor was already slowly pivoting away from a focus on electric vehicle batteries because demand has dried up.

There was no need for them.

And so they started making energy storage system batteries for a broader market.

So things like AI and Bitcoin and all these places that need additional energy sources and additional energy storage.

So they're already moving down this path.

And now what it means is two things.

What does that tell us about the automaker's broader EV strategy, especially given those massive write-downs they just announced?

How realistic is that characterization? And what do you think is really going on here?

I mean, it's realistic in the sense that it's a drop-off port for Canadian consumers.

I don't see this being an export business where China drops off 49,000 EVs in Canada and then somehow they are sent to the United States.

I just don't see that happening.

In fact, there's a possibility, and we've heard US politicians talk about it, that a Canadian consumer who buys one and is a resident of Canada might not be able to cross the border in their Chinese EVs to visit America.

So that's within the realm of possibility.

So thinking that this is some kind of nefarious scheme to supply the United States with Chinese EVs is not entirely accurate.

How do these two things intersect?

What's driving this dramatic policy shift now?

What's happened is a full-on trade war with China.

Yes, everyone knows we're engaged in one with the United States, but when we enacted those 106.1% tariffs on Chinese EVs, China then enacted tariffs on our canola industry, some seafood, other agri-products, and the farmers in the West started bending the ear of Prime Minister Mark Carney, saying how much they were hurting.

And then it became a delicate dance for Prime Minister Mark Carney to figure out how do I keep everybody happy? And so a lot of pressure from the West to lower the canola tariffs in China, a lot of pressure from the auto industry to keep the tariffs on Chinese EVs in place.

This is the compromise.

49,000 units per year allowed into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1%.

It's capped, and China has said, or at least Mark Carney says China is expected to drop their tariffs on canola down to 15%.

With Canada now opening its doors to Chinese EVs, what does this signal about the possibility of Chinese automakers eventually entering the U.S. market?

Greg, from a Canadian perspective, does this EU move have any implications for how automakers might be thinking about North American markets?

I think it has implications on how the government interacts with automakers.

I think the Canadian government is watching closely what happens elsewhere because our zero emissions vehicle sales mandate, for example, is on pause and being reworked.

Our tax incentives for purchases of EVs is on pause and being reworked.

And so I think everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop everywhere else.

And it is paralyzing everyone.

Production and development and R&D.

Greg, do you have any thoughts on this?

What exactly were automakers requiring dealers to install? It looked like it went way beyond putting in a few charging stations.

It did.

The list, it's a laundry list of things that dealers need to do from heavy duty hoists.

As you mentioned, they have to buy forklifts, if you can believe it.

And it used to be that if you owned a dealer group, you could buy one forklift and use that at multiple dealerships.

Some automakers are now requiring dealers to have a forklift in every service bay to move batteries around if need be.

They need battery tables.

With EV sales slumping, are dealers going to recoup any of that investment, or is it just sunk cost at this point?

What's going on there?

Unifor is very upset.

They think that they have a right and a contractual obligation to have product at that Cami plant.

Remember, they moved the Equinox out.

They brought Bright Drop in with great fanfare and great promise, and that product has been killed.

And Unifor believes that GM is essentially in breach of contract by not having anything to produce there.

And I'll read you the comment from Unifor later.

What caused the production pause in the first place, and why are they restarting now?

Is this a risky move?

I think it's a little risky given the current landscape.

But, you know, I sat down with Volkswagen Canada CEO Edgar Estrada about two weeks ago and grilled them on this very topic.

And they are full steam ahead on EVs.

This is the future.

This is what Volkswagen believes is the future in auto.

And this factory...

Well, Greg, what makes this project so significant and not just for VW Group, but for the North American auto industry as a whole?

Is Brampton the new Belvedere?

Yeah, you just described Brampton.

Brampton has been without production since Christmas 2023.

That's when the last muscle car and 300 rolled off the line there, and it's been idle ever since.

Expecting a retool to build the very product that has now been allotted to Belvedere, Illinois.

This is the exact same situation, and now we are playing the waiting game in Canada.

The union's upset, just as the UAW was.

What is it saying about all of this?

What has been propelling Ford's EV success in Canada?

It's the Mach-E on a brand by brand basis.

The Mach-E is developed essentially to compete with the Model Y. They're very similar in size, shape, build, range, all of that stuff.

And Canadians who have shied away from Tesla for various reasons, whether it is because they don't like Elon Musk, and that's a global trend that we saw earlier this year because of his political leanings and affiliation with Donald Trump.

A lot of Canadians were turned off by that.

There are now about 120 zero emissions vehicles in the Canadian market.

That is nearly triple what was available even in 2020 when Tesla was the dominant player.

well greg you wrote another really interesting story this week about the canadian government buying almost 100 us-made ev chargers despite the fact that there's a big trade war between the two countries and that canada makes chargers as well what's going on there