Automotive News Canada - November 2017 - 27

* N O V E M B E R 2017

TRANS-CANADA NEWS
5,000 KILOMETRES OF STORIES
CONTINUED FROM PA GE 3

Krista Kruger, who oversees managing the
service and booking the barbecue, available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Charitable groups require only a vehicle
with a trailer hitch and a two-inch tow
ball, and agree to return it promptly after
their event.
Pickup and drop-off times must be closely respected, she said, as "the barbecue is
very busy."

Receptionists' roles recognized
at dealer association workshop
CALGARY - Receptionists are often a
customer's first contact with a dealership. That's a lot of responsibility, and the
subject of a communications and skills course in
Calgary Nov. 27, sponsored
by the Motor Dealers'
Association of Alberta
(MDA).
Receptionists must
know "how to take it
all in stride," said
Ducharme
MDA President Denis
Ducharme. The workshop was designed to
discuss, role-play and demonstrate professional telephone skills, etiquette and voice
techniques; active listening "to hear the
real message;" giving and receiving feedback; and dealing with upset customers,
among other skills, Ducharme said.

Ferri group raises breast cancer
awareness and $10,000
WOODBRIDGE, Ont. - R. Ferri
Automotive, with 11 locations in the
Greater Toronto Area, is on track to
exceed the $10,000 it raised last year for the
Canadian Cancer Society and its efforts to
raise breast cancer awareness in Canada.
Vice-President Operations and Brand
Strategy Susan Ferri started the campaign
three years ago, donating a portion of
each car and motorcycle sold in the group,
across 16 brands. Other activities the
group supports for the cause include meetand-greets with its brand ambassador,
Toronto Raptors' forward Jakob Poeltl,
and sponsorship of the CIBC Run for the
Cure in both Woodbridge and Oakville,
Ont. It culminates in Test Drive for a Cure
weekend, at which the group hosts "a type
of block-party, and on that day we have
food and entertainment for customers as
well as donating for each test drive taken
at each store."

Peel expands nearby inventory
storage capacity
PORT CREDIT, Ont. - FCA Canada's No.
1-volume store, which operates out of a
tiny two-and-a-half-car showroom in the
Mississauga, Ont. village of Port Credit,
is growing. Peel Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge
has acquired a vacant five-acre property to store a large part of Peel's 1,000-unit
inventory, said dealer principal Danny
Diamantakos. The acquisition brings
Peel's total footprint to almost 10 acres
(four hectares), spread across six lots, all
within a couple hundred metres of the
showroom. - ANC

Danny Diamantakos at Peel ChryslerJeep-Dodge has acquired additional nearby inventory storage for his tiny dealership in Port Credit, Ont. ( F I L E P H O T O )

Trucks: Large
and in charge
CONTINUED FROM PA GE 3

TRICKY BALANCE

over offerings steadily rise over
the past several years. Dost said
trucks and utilities are key to
the dealership's success, and he
does not anticipate that changing anytime soon, especially as
they become more fuel-efficient
and as the technology inside
them increases.
"We're living in a fast-paced
world, and customers want
something that's good on gas and
can get us where we want and
can also do the work that they
need them to do," Dost said.
The shift toward trucks was
a swift one. Just nine years
ago, cars made up 54 percent of
Canada's new-vehicle market,
when about 140,000 more cars
were sold than light trucks.
Fast forward to 2017, and cars
accounted for 32 per cent of the
Canadian new-vehicle market
through October. Light-truck
sales, up nearly 10 per cent from
last year, are set to break another annual record, while car sales
appear poised to dip for the
fourth consecutive year.
"The market has grown at a
shocking pace," Faria said. "I
can't imagine if we went back 10
or 12 years that we would imagine anyone saying trucks would
be outselling cars two-to-one. It's
been an amazingly fast shift."
It moved so quickly that
automakers are still rushing to
adjust their production to catch
up to North American demand,
Faria said. He pointed to General
Motors' decision to extend its
summer factory shutdowns
because of slow car sales, as well
as its decision to increase production of the Chevrolet Equinox
in Mexico this year.
"It caught the car companies
off guard," he said. "The Detroit
automakers are still short of
capacity at truck-making facilities but have too much capacity
at car-making plants."

Finding the right balance between truck
and car production is
bound to become trickier in coming years as
automakers roll out more
electric offerings, typically
smaller cars that automakers
lose thousands of dollars on
per EV sold.
GM said in October that
it would launch 20 electric
models by 2023. Ford Motor
Co. has said it would invest
$4.5 billion over five years into
its electric offerings.
Automakers will need to
quickly determine how the
transition to electrified
vehicles will take place as
North American buyers
continue to clamor for
utilities and pickups.
Thus far, EVs have
almost exclusively been
developed as cars. Hybrid
technology stretched to some
utility vehicles, but it will
be crucial for automakers to
develop feasible electrified versions of utilities and trucks
if they hope to win over
North Americans over the
next several years, Faria
said.
"We just have a desire for
bigger vehicles. They tend to
be a bit safer because of the
added weight they have, and
they're more convenient in
terms of their size... But that
size makes the efficiency of
large, heavier electric vehicles as good as smaller, lighter
vehicles.
"Beyond a small-scale shift
back toward cars that would
likely happen in a recessionary period, I don't
see how there could be a
major shift back toward
something like a 50-50
market anytime soon,"
Faria said. - ANC

RED-HOT TRUC
KS

Record p
ro
since the fits and sales
G
have bee reat Recession
n driven b
ya
booming
m
trucks in arket for light
C
United Sta anada and the
look at th tes. Here is a
e
and truck Canadian car
m
2007, with arkets since
percentag annual
e change
s:
* 2017 thru
O
Cars: 564 ctober
,3
Trucks: 1 68 (-2.6%)
,195,794 (+
10%)
* 2016
Cars: 667
,1
Trucks: 1 68 (-7%)
,285,840 (+
8.8%)
* 2015
Cars: 716
,2
Trucks: 1 69 (-6.1%)
,183,803 (+
8.6%)
* 2014
Cars: 775
,5
Trucks: 1 24 (-0.1%)
,077,477 (+
11%)
* 2013
Cars: 775
,8
Trucks: 9 27 (+0.4%)
69,361 (+7
.1%)
* 2012
Cars: 773
,4
Trucks: 9 10 (+8.9%)
04,580 (+3
.1%)
* 2011
Cars: 714
,4
Trucks: 87 14 (-2%)
3,020 (+5.2
%)
* 2010
Cars: 728
,6
Trucks: 8 81 (-4%)
29,719 (+1
8%)
* 2009
Cars: 759
,1
Trucks: 7 10 (-15%)
02,565 (-6
.3%)
* 2008
Cars: 889
,0
Trucks: 7 06 (+3.8%)
49,227 (-6
%)
* 2007
Cars: 856
,7
Trucks: 7 95 (-2.5%)
96,975 (+8
.4%)

Source: A
utomotive
News Dat
a Center

Ford's balancing act: Trucks vs. EVs
By JOHN IRWIN
TORONTO BUREAU

FORD IS AN INTERESTING
case study into the balancing act
between trucks and electric vehicles.
New Ford CEO Jim Hackett faces
a significant challenge: convincing
investors and Wall Street that Ford
has a plan for an electric, autonomous future. That was one cause of
former CEO Mark Fields' departure
last May.
Sales are not a problem for Ford,
in Canada or in the United States,
where the company has ridden
record light-truck sales to some of
ts highest global annual profits in
recent years..
Look no further than the F
series. Ford sold 67,749 of the
high-margin pickups in Canada

in 2008 as the recession began. In
2016, sales were more than double:
145,409 units. A similar trend can be
seen in the United States.
But sales success has not translated to success on Wall Street,
where investors have expressed
skepticism about Ford's plans for
the future.
"They have too much cash
on their balance sheet, and
they're not doing much with it,"
David Whiston, an analyst with
Morningstar in Chicago, told
Bloomberg in October.
Hackett has made it clear
that Ford's plans
to push ahead in
the electric and
autonomous spaces will not detract
from what makes

the company profitable in the first
place, namely trucks and utility
vehicles.
"I don't think we should walk
off a ledge where we destroy the
earnings power of the company," Hackett told investors in
September. He said Ford plans for
a third of its vehicles to still have
internal-combustion engines by
2030, even as governments worldwide plan to begin banning gasoline-powered vehicles around
that time. - ANC

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - November 2017