Workers at the General Motors Oshawa assembly plant.Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail
Canada has a chance to play a crucial role in the transformation of the automobile as car companies develop electric vehicles, driverless cars and the technology such vehicles will possess, says the president of General Motors of Canada Ltd.
"It can be a large opportunity should we choose to mobilize," Steven Carlisle said Tuesday after a speech to the Canadian Club in Toronto.
Auto makers, including GM, are spending billions of dollars on new technology, in part to meet regulatory requirements for lower emissions, in part to meet the demands of a tech-savvy new generation of drivers and also to fend off the threat to their domination of the industry that is posed by technology companies and others entering the auto industry.
The current generation of younger buyers is prepared to spend as much as $3,700 on technology in vehicles, more than any other generation, Renee Stephens, vice-president of auto quality at consulting firm J.D. Power and Associates, told a separate industry conference Tuesday in Toronto.
GM is working on technologies that include driverless cars and electronic bikes, and is bringing down the costs of batteries in electric vehicles, Mr. Carlisle said.
"There is a role for government to spark a whole new level of innovation and economic development in autos," he added.
He pointed to the number of engineering graduates from Canadian universities and the commitment the new federal government has made to infrastructure spending.
"We're going to be spending money on infrastructure. Let's spend infrastructure money with a future strategic economic purpose in mind beyond roadways and bridges and so on," he said.
That would include, for example, inserting sensors in the pavement of the extension of Highway 407 that is being built east of Toronto and close to GM Canada's head office in Oshawa, Ont.
Sensing systems would permit cars to communicate with each other and determine the surface conditions of the road, he said.