By CRM Staff
Toronto, Ontario — December 11, 2018 — The recent rash of General Motors plant closures has caught the eye of Tesla CEO, Elon Musk. In an interview with CBS 60 Minutes, the electric vehicle baron said he is considering buying some of the five factories GM is closing–including the facility Oshawa, Ontario.
All told, the announced closures will put 15,000 auto professionals out of work. Oshawa’s plant, which is over 10 million square feet and employs 2,500 people.
While the plant’s labour force may be pleased by Musk’s comments, some observers say Musk is proffering in false hope. Neither Musk nor Tesla have had the opportunity to perform any serious investigation of the potential hurdles to buying out the plants.
“It’s still possible but unlikely,” says Will Mitchell, a professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Business.
Should electric vehicle production begin in Oshawa, it could have serious implications for the collision repair community in Central Canada. While the newly signed free-trade agreement–the USMCA–prevents tarriffs or other pricing barriers from being placed on any car manufactured in Canada, the U.S. or Mexico, the very existence of a manufacturing facility would likely generate an increase in the number of Canadians driving electric vehicles–and the number of electric vehicles repair being performed.
Even if the Oshawa plant does not become a Tesla facility, electric vehicle sales in Canada have been steadily increasing, with nearly 35,000 plug-in electric vehicles sold by the end of the third quarter for this year. A 158 percent increase compared to last year, the uptick is directly attributable to the arrival of Tesla’s efforts to make more affordable models. Tesla Model 3 has retained top-spot as the most-sold electric vehicle for the third quarter of the year. As it stands with the current rates, Canada will see more electric vehicles sold across the country in 2018 than the previous three years, combined.
But for right now, these vehicles still don’t measure up to standard-emission ones, and according to Unifor president, Jerry Dias, he doesn’t believe that Musk is too serious about buying the Oshawa plant and that the only solution is still in the hands of GM.
“I’d be open to anything but ultimately less than two per cent are electric vehicle sales… So that doesn’t even fill up one assembly plant. The only way that operation (the Oshawa plant) stays open in the short-term and in the long-term is with General Motors and that’s why we are not letting them off the hook,” Dias said in an interview with CP24.
