A (2:38)

Yeah. And you, you've been with GM for a little while. I wonder if you could give us a very brief whistle stop tour of your journey through this behemoth. Oem.

B (2:48)

Well, yeah, I started my career at General Motors, as probably my accent gives away, in Australia. And back then General Motors in Australia was known as Holden. And it was a full scale manufacturer, engineer and developer, designer of vehicles, primarily for the Australian market, but exported to the world. And so from day one, it really brought a global mindset to the way that you think about the automotive industry and the way that you think about your customer. And I've had the privilege of working for General Motors in various parts of the world, various parts of the organization, and of course Australia, New Zealand. I had the opportunity to represent Cadillac in its international markets, based in Dubai, before coming here to Canada. So that is a very shortened history of my time at General Motors.

A (3:48)

Now, General Motors probably epitomizes this whole mantra of, oh, we're going to see more change in the next 10 years than we have seen than ever happened before in the automotive industry. And I believe GM was founded in 1908, but I guess since probably 2009 it has undergone profound change. And I wonder if you could just give us just a couple of the headline stats that I've heard a couple of times this weekend around how GM's EV portfolio is performing here in Canada.

B (4:18)

Well, yeah, so for GM's perspective, like we are, as you said 1908, we're involved in leading this amazing transformation in personal mobility from the horse and cart to the horseless carriage. And that was never more successful than it was here in Canada where the founder of a carriage maker joined forces with General Motors and thereby this beautiful thing GM Canada started. Fast forward to here we are in 2020, 25 and we are navigating yet another fantastic transition transformation in personal mobility, which is all at its very heart is offering convenience and value to our customers. That's what's really driving this transition more than anything. And this technology is not limited to the electrification, although that's what everyone, that's what we're talking about here. But it's also the coming together and convergence of other things such as the connectivity of vehicles, the fact that they're more software defined than they've ever going to than they've ever been before. And through that, customizable for our customers. The fact that in many ways the cars will increasingly be able to drive themselves. Today you can drive one of our electric vehicles or gas powered vehicles with Super Cruise and be hands off for miles and miles on Canadian roads. And this is all coming together and offering customers the choice in a competitive environment to be the number one seller of EVs in this country. Number one seller of luxury EVs under our Cadillac brand. That's something that in a very short period of time, like you suggested, has happened at just an electrifying pace.

A (6:16)

I had the privilege of going in an optic earlier on this week.

B (6:20)

Cool.

A (6:21)

I really liked it. And I'm going to mention this. You'll be like, oh for God's sake. Of all the different things that in that car that you could have pointed out, why was it this? I just flipping love that in actually the whole Cadillac lineup that you can adjust the seats on the door rather than sort of blindly trying to find how you control the seats. I just think that is a neat feature.

B (6:42)

That's a little Cadillac signature feature. Be able to to change the settings and set your massage settings just there on the door within plain sight. And anyone who gets in an optic needs to try our audio system. It is mind blowing. I mean we can talk about how a car drives and gets from A to B all you like, but its audio system is super cool with Dolby surround and it is just yet another experience for luxury customers.

A (7:12)

Can I ask what you drive?

B (7:14)

Yeah. We've gone from being a two gas powered vehicle family to a two EV family. So we have a Cadillac Lyriq. So the bigger version of the Optic that you just turned out turned on, it's a five seater SUV. And we've also got a GMC Sierra EV truck which is nearing like 800 kilometers of range. So that is just the ideal recreational work vehicle for us because I can put my kayak right through the back of the vehicle. The midgate drops down so a full two man kayak can get into that. Plus my bicycles and we're set for Canadian summers.

A (8:03)

I could probably move house at the same time. It is an absolutely behemoth contraption, but extremely cool, fantastic car. Now one of the things that strikes me about GM in Canada is that Canada is huge. And not only is it huge, but it has these sort of hotspots in different cities. And so I feel like your job must be extremely difficult in that you're having to have almost a very localized approach in how you speak to customers. And I know that Vancouver in particular is a bit of an anomaly when compared to the rest of Canada. Canada, how on earth do you go about that?

B (8:36)

Yeah, I mean it's, it comes. We're blessed with a team who can really think locally. We have representation right across the country, gives who give us feedback into the way that we should be going into market. And of course, the biggest strength is a dealer network. A dealer network that is in every corner of the country, very sensitive to the needs of their customers in each part of the the country and can help us with understanding where products should be allocated and our approach to how we present our vehicles and our brands to the customers in their communities. You're right in pointing out that observation is actually quite incisive. You've got a patchwork of different policy approaches, for example, that drive the market in very different ways across our country. As you say, Vancouver has been benefiting from EV incentives which were different to say, Alberta or Calgary right across the way. And so we adapt our approach accordingly and make sure that we've got our vehicles positioned to meet the market in each of those circumstances.

A (9:52)

One of the huge challenges about, and this has been a theme really that's emerged during this whole weekend, is that in order to develop clean energy technologies and electric vehicles and indeed any sort of oem, you need to have that commitment to a long term future, not least because the product cycle dictates that. But the political environment is changing on a much more frequent basis and I think this epitomizes that. So I printed my notes on Thursday evening, which was a mistake because my.

B (10:20)

Question changed so much.

A (10:21)

Well, quite so my question on Thursday evening was ZEV mandates in this region are ambitious. 100% of sales by 2035, but sales dipped after incentives ended earlier this year, etc. Etc. Etc. It goes on Friday morning it was announced that the ZEV mandate is being temporarily scrapped, whatever that means. And from your perspective, what is the best approach and is it just sufficient to have excellent vehicles and for that to be enough to drive this transition to electric vehicles?

B (10:56)

Well, I think firstly I'm very much a believer that we should be absolutely building fantastic, convenient vehicles that look good, are fun to drive, have all the technology, but really it's really a strategy based on following the customer and being dictated by the customer, their willingness to pay, their desires and choice for convenience. That really should be driving the market and the transition. We at General Motors are very much Pro EV. We've released 13 EVs in the last 18 months. There's more to come to offer that choice. There's an EV in our portfolio for every Canadian wallet and we are hungry to beat our competition in trying to meet the market better than they can. And that is what's driving our growth, our position, our ranking in the marketplace. At the same time, it's not going to be practical in every use Case in a country as vast as Canada, to dictate a rate of transition or an EV adoption. So we continue to invest in making our gas powered vehicles incredibly efficient, more efficient on every release, so that that choice exists for customers. And if a certain technology, whether it be EVs, gas powered vehicles or hybrids in between, are going to compel a customer to come over and transition from whatever they used to, they need to be good enough to deserve that. And we're very invested in trying to make compelling vehicles to do just that. We don't want to miss out on the technology change. Once technology that is awesome like EVs is out there, it's difficult to contain it. Customers will lead it and we want to be at the forefront of supplying them.

A (13:05)

Gosh, there's so many different ways I could take this question because I know that our audience, many of the people listening are real, die hard pro EV fans. To the extent where anything that's got hybrid in the title, we're like, we don't know how we feel about those and yet we have to be realistic about the fact that this is going to be a journey and people have to go on that journey in their own time and the way that feels most appropriate for them. And so it's a curious thing that you said there because on the one hand, in having the full portfolio, both internal combustion engine vehicles and electric vehicles, it allows people who are customers to make that transition. Maybe they currently have a GM product that has a petrol engine, but maybe their next one will be an electric vehicle. But at the same time, many of your EV customers I believe are new to the brand.

B (13:51)

That's right.

A (13:52)

So do you see very different, I guess like customer profiles between your combustion engine side of the business and electric vehicle side of the business?

B (14:02)

It's an interesting question. About 60% of our EV customers are new to GM. First time they've driven, walked into a GM dealership and purchased a GM vehicle. And by goodness we want to make sure that they come back again. So we'll work very hard for that business. Yeah, the profile so far has been very much a tech forward, early adopter style transitioning to that early majority type of customer. But the same fundamentals exist almost regardless of propulsion system. People demand and should receive great value for money, great convenience with the technology that they're considering to purchase. They are certainly expecting and will receive from a GM dealer great service. And those fundamentals do not change. It's like almost technology agnostic. And of course the reliability. I did forget to say that reliability and the backup of, in our case, 450 dealers across the country, these are all things that are consistent regardless and yet there is slightly different profile. But hey, we see EV customers across all, all age groups. I don't know if you can paint an average EV buyer do a peng picture of them, but we're very much driven by meeting those fundamentals and making sure that an EV delivers on those expectations.

A (15:51)

So coming back to ZEV mandate and incentives and ZEV mandate was there, now it's not there. Incentives were there, they're now not there. It's really difficult because it totally changes the game from a consumer perspective of the perceived urgency and also the accessibility of these vehicles because incentives obviously help make them more affordable. If we could ring up Mark Carney and leave him a little voice note, what would you say?

B (16:20)

Yeah, so incentives, purchase incentives like that serve a purpose in accelerating what would otherwise naturally happen at a slower pace. To answer your question directly, I'm talking to an economist when I'm calling Mark Carney and I would suggest this, I would suggest that whilst there's purchase incentives as a one off hit does play a role, I think a higher priority.

A (16:56)

For.

B (16:59)

Our resources as they're always constrained, would to be invest in the things that are going to be generational, long lasting and have a much broader impact on EV adoption in our country. And that's making charging infrastructure far more ubiquitous across Canada. That I think is higher priority for me and that should be a focus. If you actually look at our customer data, when we ask customers who are considering an EV or may not be considering an ev, what are the main barriers, they say range, they say affordability and they might say just the technology is not something I'm familiar with. Well, the range thing, when we produce a vehicle that can travel 800km on a single charge, that's not range anxiety, that's charger anxiety. And that is an actual thing here in Canada. Not necessarily. Maybe in Vancouver, but you go beyond Vancouver into the northern part of our province here or anywhere in Canada and you're just not sure whether there'll be a charger there and if it's there, whether it will be working. Now 800 kilometres you can get to Kelowna and probably halfway back, probably more than that and you don't have to worry too much about it. But for a lot of folks that's still going to be on their mind. It's an uncertainty around whether they make that transition. So you can take that issue right out of the equation by investing in, in that infrastructure, it's nation building type of infrastructure and I think it deserves higher priority.

A (18:45)

And it is the age old chicken and egg question of our electric era, I think. And just to pick up on the 800km, could that get you from Vancouver up to Kelowna? For anyone who also watches our episodes, our Electric boat episode that I actually mentioned at the start was in Kelowna. And what's brilliant about that journey from here to Kelowna is that you can stop in a place called Hope, which was where actually a lot of the Rambo films were filmed. But it also has. So it's in the middle of nowhere, but it has fantastic charging infrastructure so that that journey becomes very easy. And you can stop for really excellent sandwiches as well. I'm just gonna do a little time check. Okay. We also will come to a few questions, so if you do have one, make sure to store it up. Oh, in a few moments time though. So I've clocked you and you can, you can sit down for a little bit.

B (19:36)

I think you're number one first of the. When it does, let's cap off the rank.

A (19:40)

So the other question I have is that we've obviously mentioned that the changing ZEV mandate here in Canada, which is the most recent news, but there's also a number of other political tensions that make life quite challenging, I would say. And recently GM announced that you're continuing to import battery cells from Catl, despite obviously those trade tensions that may exist. And of course GM has an incredibly global footprint. There's a design studio in the UK that is doing all sorts of secret, wonderful things. Yeah, there's like a location everywhere. And so you've got this dichotomy of trying to bring more of GM's footprint within the US but also having to square that with the fact that it is a global organization with global partnerships.

B (20:27)

Right.

A (20:28)

That must make your life very hard. How can you operate in those particular environments?

B (20:34)

Well, it's the difficulty that comes with any geopolitical or a phase of geopolitical tensions that are shifting and always, you know, they're always moving and your investments are much longer term and durable than the speed at which those tensions can shift. But just to point out there, I mean, it's when most of we like to build vehicles close to where we sell them, we like to source materials. Now particularly, we've learned a lot in the last five, six years. We'd like to source materials closer to where we make the vehicles near shore and reduce, reduce risks. Just generally do that in an economic way for our customers. Yes, you're right that we are temporarily utilizing CATL LFP cells to bridge a gap to when we can actually get our own battery cell or our joint venture battery cell production up and running in the United States. And so it's really a stopgap solution. And really that's just in response to managing. Of course we're managing through all of the geopolitical stuff, but really at the heart of it is we're responding to the customer. Customer said we love your EVs. We'd like a potentially a lower cost version. Maybe we're not going to prioritize range so much. So for the use case that a lot of those customers are showing up for inner urban kind of transport, can go several days without need for a charge, but don't want to necessarily spend a lot of money on the, on the capital outlay for the vehicle. How can we respond to that? Yeah, we're going to move quickly to bring an LFP chemistry battery in the highest cost part of the vehicle, of course, and make that as available as close, as quickly as we can. Since then, changes in the geopolitical situation have shifted, but we're able to continue along that strategy with an eye on what we'll eventually ultimately do to provide that same affordability with a nearshore solution. And that's how we're just navigating that particular use case.

A (22:58)

And of course here in Canada it is blessed with a huge number of critical raw materials.

B (23:04)

Yes.

A (23:05)

How is GM thinking about leveraging what is on offer here and those supply chains?

B (23:10)

Yeah, so we're looking at a variety of chemistries at the moment. Some of those really lend themselves nicely to what Canada has to offer, such as its immense nickel resources. We now hire nickel chemistry batteries and yeah, so we're taking that opportunity sourcing some of those materials but also doing some of the added value processing of those materials here in Canada. We're building a facility with our joint venture partner at the moment in Quebec, which would take nickel and some of the other materials inputs and we'll make the CAM material, the cathode side of the battery for a lithium ion battery, which we will then export to our battery cell plants in other parts of the continent to turn that into a cell and then eventually a battery pack wherever we make the battery pack. So that's just one example. And you know, we have other agreements near shoring onto the continent provides opportunities for Canada. We have a arrangement with another provider of naturally forming graphite to help on the anode side, and that's going to be another opportunity to pursue. So we're being opportunistic about where those chances lie for Canada to play a role in our entire battery supply chain.

A (24:42)

I will come to the question, I haven't forgotten it. Just want to reassure you. So GM has recently formed a partnership with Hyundai in pursuit of those lower cost EVs, I believe. And also here in Canada, there aren't Chinese EVs. And so I know those two statements sort of sound unrelated, but I suppose the question is at the moment you have that benefit of not having to compete with Chinese EVs, but very quickly there is still that need to have greater affordability in the EV sector. And how much of that partnership with Hyundai is an anticipation of competing more substantially with Chinese EVs?

B (25:23)

Yeah, it's certainly a part of the puzzle. It's not the only lever that we're pulling here to just rapidly increase our competitiveness and translate some of the benefit of that to it for our customers. So for example, the deal with Hyundai, yes, it allows us to co develop some vehicles together, but really the opportunity for, between us, I think we produce and sell across the globe something like 10 million vehicles. That's enormous scale to bring to our battery supply chains wherever we can, or any our supply chains, our development contract costs wherever we can look for complementary opportunities to collaborate. It only benefits those folks who are considering purchasing our vehicles and owning our vehicles. So that's just one of the responses we're confident with, you know, with GM's capability in design our brands and what they promise, the service that our dealerships around the country, around both countries offer, that we're preparing ourselves to face any competitor, no matter where they come from. So that's the work that's going on. I think there's plenty of opportunity to improve our readiness.

A (26:57)

So the podcast that's going out before yours is with RJ Scarring, who's CEO of Rivian. And I asked him this question as well. If you had to go and work, had to go and apply for a job at another oem, and let's say it's not like a super duper fancy title like you currently have.

B (27:16)

Oh no.

A (27:19)

And this can be an oem, past or present, and it can't be gm, where would you apply? Oh, for reference, RJ said that he'd go and be a track engineer at Porsche or like a test driver at Porsche.

B (27:36)

Porsche immediately came to my mind too, because, you know, I just, I just remember the posters that I had when I was Growing up as a kid were, were Porsches and, and, and Holden's General Motors in, in Australia though. They were the two sort of, you know, brands that I really admired. Geez, that's a tough question because you know, we consider Porsche as a competitor nowadays. We've got this wonderful Corvette, it's a mid engine thing, it goes around a track really quick and you know there is a, I don't know if there's anyone out there that's not a competitor. I'm actually, I might come back to you on that question. That's a really tough one.

A (28:27)

It is a really tough question and it's an unfair one that I didn't prepare you for.

B (28:30)

That's okay. I don't want anyone, my employers especially getting the intention, getting any intention on thinking that was the best response for them actually.

A (28:40)

Well yeah, everyone's a competitor and yeah, that was an extremely diplomatic answer as well. The gentleman who is here, let's go to your question and then we'll come over there.

B (28:49)

Hi.

C (28:52)

I think it's fair to say that in Canada we have a habit of taking our natural resources and in some cases selling them to other countries to manufacture things and then bringing them back for us to buy. And with there hasn't been the T word mentioned much here in the last two days with the tariffs, is that going to make it more difficult? I believe the bright drop is the only electric vehicle the GM makes that's manufactured here in Canada or assembled at least.

B (29:23)

Yeah. As a finished vehicle. Correct? Yep.

C (29:26)

Is that going to mean that we might lose them or we would lose future General Motors manufacturing because of that, because of the tariff situation or is there something in GM's long term where that very important southern Ontario niche of putting cars together is on their agenda?

B (29:52)

Yeah. This trade dynamic that has emerged in the last I guess few months, half a year I suppose really does prompt us to do, to take really a step back and make sure that. Okay. When it comes to Canada's role in the automotive industry or in GM Canada's role within the GM manufacturing footprint, how should we best respond to the situation? The situation is pretty unclear. It is riddled with ambiguity. But the best thing you can do in times of ambiguity and uncertainty is invest in your ability to react, to be agile, to be able to adapt to the situation. And that's where we've invested a hell of a lot of time resources thinking about. We've been spending a lot of time with our people making sure that we're ready for the to be resilient but also agile. Through that time, we're continuing to invest here in Canada. We're very excited about the prospects and our role in the automotive industry within the General Motors manufacturing footprint. But also beyond manufacturing, we're investing in tech talent. We have 12 to 1300 software engineers and hardware engineers there also in Ontario, coming from the best of Canadian universities and the talent from around the world. And these are the people that are working on those very things that I was describing before. That trend around connectivity of the vehicles, the electrification of them, the software basis of the vehicle vehicles, as well as their autonomous capability. With Super Cruise, we've got that happening here in Canada. So in summary, we've spent a bit of time taking the opportunity to work out what we need to do to be agile to whatever happens and show durability through times of ambiguity. And I think the team's responded amazingly to that challenge.

A (32:17)

Thank you so much for your question. I guess related to that, it's hard, right? And there must be days where you're like, oh, for goodness sake, this is just quite annoying. And more than quite annoying, worrying at times as well. So if the power of this event, the power of this podcast could grant you a wish. So one thing that you'd be like, do you know what? That would make life really a lot easier over the next 12 to 18 months, what would you ask for?

B (32:44)

Something that's all in the power of your hands. I think you all live in Vancouver, bc. We would really like to see grow. We see opportunity to spread the word around what General Motors has to offer, particularly in the space that you're here at an EV show because you're interested in the technology. And I think we want to really impress you with what we've got and what we've developed as General Motors. And for too long we feel like, you know, we might have been late to the party, but geez, when we turn up to the party, we wanted to come with all of the best of what we have to offer. And I think if anything I could wish for from the team that the group that is here today is I think helping us with our. The awareness of what General Motors has brought to the table here in the British Columbia market would be enormous assistance.

A (33:45)

Well, you heard it here. And also downstairs you can actually test driver loaded the GM lineup and there you go. As I said, I really liked the optic. That was pretty good. We will take two questions and then we'll have to wrap up. So we'll go here and then there.

C (33:59)

Thank you very much. And Christian, I'm here to give a bit of a General Motors ad and to shift the conversation a little bit about what electric vehicles are that ICE vehicles are not. And GM is a very smart company and I think a lot of people don't know there's a part of it called GM Energy and people maybe don't know as well that one of the GM vehicles can power your home for over 20 days. So I'm an oddball that thinks of electric vehicles as batteries that happen to have wheels and you know, going 800 kilometers. Wonderful. But that's, that's a unique thing. And I'm finishing now. You know, wonderful to have a massage feature, but to be able to power your home for a few days when and if there's an outage, I think would be more. And I wanted to ask you really about the work that GM is doing there or how that will come to play with utilities. Thank you very much.

B (35:04)

Yeah, thanks for that question. I think it's such an exciting opportunity for that is altruistic beyond the purchase and ownership of a vehicle for mobility is this capability of having nodes that can potentially essentially come together and respond to an emergency situation or indeed allow customers to access the most efficient, efficiently priced power for their own lives and buy off peak power and store it and use it at another time. So we. So the GM energy business unit is still a growing business for us. We've prioritized our efforts in the US so we can learn from the utilities that we're working with. We can learn around those utilities who are predisposed to leveraging that opportunity, who identify some, what would you call it? There's some benefit for them as well because that can modify their investment planning, save some money, but also prepare them for the worst of times as well. Those utilities are teaching us a lot about how we might approach the expansion of that business in other markets like Canada. To the extent that we have open mindedness to it from Canadian based utilities. There's going to be a time where we want to start that conversation because as you say, all those kilowatt hours bound up in a vehicle has so much and those electrons has so much usefulness beyond the mobility piece. And so I look forward to exploring that as that business develops a bit further. Thanks for bringing it up.

A (36:57)

Yeah, thank you for your question. And I have to say I agree because our audience love both clean energy and electric vehicles and any opportunity for vehicle to grid type situations. That is the sweet spot of our audience and we want to hear about it even More last question over there.

D (37:16)

So I was down in Nova Scotia and I was coming here and I thought I'll just drive. So I did.

A (37:23)

You drove from Nova Scotia?

D (37:24)

Yes, in my ev.

A (37:26)

Could.

D (37:26)

Took a while.

B (37:27)

What?

A (37:29)

That doesn't deserve a round of applause?

D (37:32)

It was kind of inadvertent, like I had to go back to Montreal and so I did. And then I thought, well, why don't I just keep going? So I did.

B (37:40)

You just took a wrong turn somewhere?

D (37:42)

I made a wrong turn, I ended up in Alberta. What can I say, you know, and then I came here, so. But I wanted to just second your suggestion to Mark Carney. So what I learned crossing the country is we do not have a coherent national charging network. We have chargers, but other than Tesla, we do not have a network that's designed as a network to facilitate east to west, west to east travel and especially from Sault Ste. Marie to Winnipeg. So if you're looking for a spot to mention where that charging infrastructure should go, that's, that's my vote. Okay, so I totally second your opinion that what's missing is charging infrastructure. The other thing I would say is I met a lot of GM EV drivers along the way. They love their cars and they're very brand loyal, they love the company. So that's, you know, and whether they were driving a bolt or something new GM drivers that I met. And at Chargers people talk, right? And like nobody said anything bad about their GM EVs, so I'm just going to say that. And then the third thing I'd like to say is I'm from Quebec, it gets cold. I want that heat the house feature on my next ev. I thank you.

A (39:06)

Thank you. And before you go, could you just, for our international listeners, can you just tell us roughly how many miles or kilometers was that drive?

D (39:16)

Just the one leg, 6,000 kilometers. But I actually had to get there first, so I've actually driven 9,000 kilometers, give or take.

B (39:28)

Well, I think you're right for a new car.

D (39:32)

This can be. But it wasn't like, I'm retired, I had time, right. I just doodled along.

B (39:39)

I must say I've shared some of your experience because my family of my son and I, we did a road trip from Toronto to Cape Breton island on your beautiful, beautiful province there. And you're absolutely right around the patchwork that exists of charging infrastructure. Some provinces themselves have invested deeply and it's just easy. And it's like the whole idea is not an adventure, it's just transport. But then it becomes an adventure. But I think, you know, it's fledgling and it'll I think with the right leadership there and the right policy environment, it will encourage investment to support what we've already got.

D (40:24)

When you're whispering in Mr. Carney's ear, please ask him to start in Chetty Caen, which is at the north end of Cape Breton island and especially, especially not to miss the bit in Northern Ontario because that is the weakest point in the national network. Thank you.

A (40:44)

Thank you. And also thank you for doing the extensive market research there as well. We have gone way over time, so thank you so much, Christian. It's been an extremely enjoyable conversation. Thank you to everyone here in the room. It has been absolutely glorious having you here. And to those listening along on at home or in the car on the podcast, as ever, please do like and subscribe. And if you have been, thank you for listening and watching.