Gm canada is Looking to the Future As Featured in the Montreal Gazette’s Automotive Outlook

I believe that four key areas of rapid innovation will ultimately converge into what we call, “the future of mobility.”  

First, environmental technology and electric cars.  Our industry is spending billions of dollars on environmental technology to reduce emissions. But we think the most significant and lasting change will be the transition to electric vehicles and fuel cells.  At GM we’re proud to be the leading-seller of electric vehicles in Canada for the past several years.  In early 2017, GM will launch the first affordable and long-range electric vehicle, the Chevrolet Bolt EV.  With a US EPA-estimated 383 km of range on a single charge, customers can expect the Bolt EV to take them beyond their average daily driving needs- with plenty of range to spare. 

The second trend is the “connected car.”  What smartphones have done to connect us in the last decade, our cars will do in the future.  For almost 20 years, GM’s customers have been wirelessly connected through GM’s OnStar system and now OnStar brings 4G LTE connectivity to all of our new Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles. Connectivity is a top priority for our customers.  More than 70 percent of the world’s population owns a mobile device, and 87 percent of millennials say their smartphone never leaves their side. No other competitor has the ability to integrate mobile, projected and in-vehicle experiences like we can, through OnStar and our integration of smartphone technology like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.  

The third step involves cars that drive themselves which we refer to as “autonomous driving.”  GM technologies like lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control and active braking are all on the road today.  The next step is the launch of Cadillac’s “Super Cruise” technology which features adaptive cruise control at any speed and uses cameras and sensors to automatically steer and break in controlled access roadway situations.  And as part of our recently announced autonomous software mandate, we’ll be working on the development of these technologies right here in Canada.  

The fourth trend is “urban mobility.”  To tackle the challenges of urban traffic, we see our cities moving toward an integrated, multi-modal mobility system. As part of that, our customers will increasingly share the use of vehicles instead of owning them.  The city is where these key trends will come together – with more electric, shared, and autonomous vehicles.  The auto industry of tomorrow won’t only focus on selling vehicles but on selling kilometres and gigabytes too.  At GM we’re striving for a sharing system that feels like ownership. If you can make it seamless, convenient and reliable, it will make sharing feel personal. 

GM has been moving fast in the sharing economy.  First we launched Maven, a new GM brand that’s dedicated to vehicle-sharing and ride-hailing.    We’re also investing in strategic partnerships with companies like Lyft and Cruise automation to advance our development in software and autonomous vehicle technologies. 

What does all this mean for Canada?  The answer is opportunity.  Last year, GM Canada took on a forward-looking innovation mandate for work on the connected car at our Canadian Technical Centre in Oshawa, Ontario and we opened our innovation lab, 2908 @ Communitech in Waterloo, Ontario.

In June, I was joined by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne to announce a major expansion of our engineering and software work in Canada to support the development of innovative new automotive systems and technologies for the future.  We’ll also open a new Software Development Centre in Markham, Ontario, we’re investing $10 million in our Kapuskasing Cold Weather testing facility, and we plan to develop a new Urban Mobility Hub on Eastern Avenue in downtown Toronto.   Our goal is to actively promote better, safer and more environmentally beneficial approaches to urban mobility.