The Current - Will the Windsor-made Dodge Charger EV be a hit?

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

Electric Dodge Charger Daytonas will start rolling off the production line at a Windsor, Ont. assembly plant sometime this month. It’s the first electric passenger car to be mass-produced in Canada — but can the classic muscle car with a twist help pave the way to a sustainable future? The union president representing workers at the Windsor Assembly Plant and an auto industry journalist discuss the new car’s potential.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. Well, a new kind of car is coming to town. It's rolling off the line at a factory in Windsor, Ontario, along with a lot of hopes and expectations for the city and the future of the auto industry in Canada. The Dodge Charger Daytona is an electric passenger car, the first ever to be mass-produced in this country.

Its maker, Stellantis, also calls it the world's first electric muscle car. This is how the company's pitching it to drivers. We aren't building electric vehicles because it's trendy. We're building them to save our planet. To save it from all those soulless, self-driving sleep pods people keep littering our streets with. That's why we're doing it. Whether the Dodge Charger EV is a hit when it arrives in showrooms in the coming weeks remains to be seen.

It faces a lot of market competition. And U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is threatening 25% tariffs on anything coming from Canada, which would include this car, and to cuts support for the EV industry as well. So will the Charger rev up the shift to electrification happening in Windsor and in Canada? James Stewart is the president of Unifor Local 444, the union representing workers at the Windsor Assembly Plan. James, good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm doing very well.

I imagine you're feeling pretty bullish about the future. Windsor Assembly Plant. James, good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm doing very well. I imagine you're feeling pretty bullish about the future. I understood you got behind the wheel of the Dodge Charger. You've driven it. What's it like? It's amazing. It's very responsive. You get in there and you touch it and it moves like lightning. It's got some power behind it and it's instant responsive when you touch the pedal. How long have you, in the union, how long have you been working on making this vehicle a reality in Windsor? So the real architecture behind it started in bargaining in 2020, but it wasn't about the charger going electric. What it was is about making sure that Canada got investment around EVs. Prior to 2020 bargaining, there was zero investment dollars in EV,

and the world's going there. I mean, there may be some headwinds in the way, but the facts are for different reasons, the electric vehicle is going to be a part of it. And we wanted to make sure that Canada didn't fall behind in our bargaining. So what we bargained really was investments to electric vehicles and multi-energy vehicles in Canada 2020 on, and it's not something that happens instantly.

It takes time. So once you bargain it, because it was $0 in Canada, it takes time, and it wasn't until this year with a ret retool last year, and Brampton Assembly Plant going under the same thing as we speak. It wasn't until then until it could come to fruit. And it was after our bargaining that the company decided that this is where the charger was going to go. Yeah, and there has been a huge bet. And it's not just Delantis, it's the Ontario government, it's the federal government. They There are billions of dollars. I know the parliamentary budget officer says since 2020, there's been about $46 billion invested in taxpayers' money into this. But as you mentioned, there are some

headwinds. You've got a lot of competition from Tesla in the US, from Chinese manufacturers. So how confident are you that this will indeed be a success? Well, I'm confident. You know, I think the real problem is how quickly the turnover is going to be on these vehicles. And there may be, you know, some of the politics of the states and, you know, everyone's got their own ideas about that, but certainly poses a challenge. But I think for the long term, the EV is going to be successful. Okay, but let's address that elephant in the car showroom, if you will. Donald Trump, President-elect, promising at this stage 25% tariff on anything imported from Canada.

What would that do to the sales of this vehicle? You know, this vehicle becomes irrelevant. If he's successful on a 25% tariff on all Canadian products, I mean, manufacturing in Canada is a jeopardy. Make no mistake. It's not this vehicle. is a jeopardy. Make no mistake. It's not this vehicle. It's anything we build because our most things we build, the main customer is the United States. In auto, I think it's at around 90%. So it's not the electric vehicle that will be in trouble. It's all vehicles. Make no mistake about it. So what do you do about that? You know, there's not much we can do internally. What we can do is use our connections

to talk to all levels of government and in the United States and our partners in the United States to make sure they understand how it affects them. It's not just going to affect Canadians, make no mistake. It'll affect Americans. The cost of products will will go up i think uh i think some of it uh you know is is leveraged from uh the american uh new president uh to achieve some goals he may need and the canadian government will hopefully uh respond in turn however that plays out, whether it means matching incentives or finding a path that results in a good trading partner in the U.S. like we've had previously. Stellantis is taking a bit of a gamble on this EV. And, you know, we're talking about the competition from without. But Stellantis has had its own problems with high inventory, slow sales, falling revenue.

And that led to the resignation, as you well know, of CEO Carlo Tavares. So does that concern you that even your own home base is perhaps not on such firm ground? As a local president, I'm always concerned. You know, you always think of the worst. And quite often, there's people doing work in the background to get a positive outcome. Stlantis is making changes to some of the... Mr. Tavares didn't just resign over those issues. There was a whole host of issues, and if you listen to him talk, he misjudged an American market on some of the things he was doing, and it wasn't around the EVs.

It was around his business plan. And I think the fact that he's gone and you have new people working their way through it, and the company has brought back some other people in recent months to try and change their outlook and change their path moving forward. I believe Stellantis is going to be successful. Again, it's about how fast they can do it. You live in Windsor and you know better than anyone the highs and lows the city's been through because of the fortunes of the auto industry you know over the of the past two decades we've seen plants shut down thousands of people losing their jobs so what would the success of this EV of this, and of the new electric industry around it mean for Windsor itself and the people there? I think it's, you know, you look at the Windsor Assembly Plant and you look at the

employees it has. Right now, it's just over 4,000 employees. When the third shift is scheduled to come back next year. That will raise employment in the plant to 55 or 6,000. And then you have the feeder system. You know, what it means for the city of Windsor is something tremendous. But it's not just the idea of the EV being successful. It's the idea that our plant is is built on the stla stla uh large platform it can build a bev uh hybrid and an ice engine uh with with various uh top hats on the large platform it's a multi-energy and a multi-platform uh uh plant and i think that's the key uh for windsor i think windsor is going to be successful because,

you know, when battery electric slows down, they'll increase the PHEV and the ICE engines. That's the real success of how this is going to play out over the next several years in Windsor. And I think it really is important. And are you already feeling, are you getting that sense of optimism in Windsor right now that the future is indeed electric? Yeah, I mean, you know, I can't speak for the general public. That's not my role. I can speak for the people we represent and the feeling they have. And they know that, you know, their future depends on it. And they can see it. They can see the way the company is making sure the product that comes off the line right now is as pristine as they can make it.

I think people are hedging their bets on it. I think they feel good about it. Let's hope that that feeling paves the way to success for the vehicle, both for Windsor and for the Canadian auto industry. James, thanks for your time this morning. Thank you. James Stewart is the president of Unifor Local 444, the union that represents the workers at Stellantis' Windsor Assembly Plant. He was in Windsor, Ontario.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Greg Lason is a digital and mobile editor at Automotive News Canada. He's in Windsor as well. He's an auto journalist there. Greg, thanks for joining us this morning. We appreciate this. Yeah, no problem. Windsor betting on the Charger to help the city become a, and I should say Windsor, Windsor betting on the charger to help the city become, and I should say Windsor, Windsor, Ontario government, federal government betting on the charger to help the city become a hub for electrification. In your estimation, Greg, just how safe is that bet? I would say it's fairly safe. You know,

the transition to electric vehicles is not going to be smooth, nor is it going to be quick. From where I sit, and a lot in the industry think that, yes, governments have put a lot of eggs in this basket and they want it to happen overnight. It's just not going to happen overnight. Particularly in Windsor, the Charger is not what many would consider a family vehicle. It's not a mainstream vehicle. It's more of a niche vehicle. It's a muscle car.

It's a high margin vehicle. So it's good for Stellantis because those folks will pay a premium for those vehicles. And that's how we've seen the industry go early on in electrification is they've electrified their premium vehicles, their high margin vehicles. So, you know, think Cadillac over at GM, think muscle cars at Stellantis. So these are the first steps in all of this. Now, the thing about Windsor is that Daytona charger will be available in an internal combustion engine variant. It will be available as an electric vehicle. And that

factory will continue to build minivans that are powered by gasoline engines and hybrid engines. So this factory is incredibly diverse. So from the city standpoint, it's a good bet because that factory is incredibly versatile and keep people working and building whatever the market demands. From a macro perspective, it's a little different because not everyone's going to want to buy an electrified charger. Yeah, let's talk about the future of the EV industry itself. I mean, obviously, the Charger Daytona plays a part of that, but as you mentioned, it is a niche vehicle. But the concerns that are out there, tell us about, I mean, I've heard a lot of these anecdotally, but tell us about the primary concerns that Canadian consumers or consumers in North America currently have about purchasing an EV vehicle. First and foremost is price. Second is range and third is infrastructure.

And those second two are kind of 2A and 2B. They are sort of almost, they almost have the same amount of concern among buyers, but the price is number one. I always liken this to flat screen TVs. I often use this analogy. In 2000, you would go to your friend's house and they'd have a flat screen TV and you'd think they're a millionaire because they cost a fortune and they were incredibly rare. And now every room in your house has a flat screen TV varying in size from like 25 inches to 85 inches. And they don't cost thousands of dollars. And you're not a millionaire if you own one. Electric vehicles are sort of in that same vein in that when they first come out, they're very expensive because there's no supply chain.

There's no mass production. There's no economies of scale. Usually only the affluent can buy them or the folks who really think they're doing good and are incredibly environmentally conscious. So the transition is going to be slow. Price is number one. On average, anywhere from $11,000 to $14,000 more than their internal combustion engine counterpart of similar size, shape, make, model. After that, it becomes range, which is a little overblown in my opinion, because, you know, I look at the electric vehicle as silly as it sounds. It's the same as your cell phone. You use it all day. You come home, you charge it, you wake up in the morning and it has 100 percent charge. You don't need all of that range every day and you don't need that infrastructure on every street corner. You don't need that infrastructure on every street corner.

You know, the average Canadian drives anywhere from 60 to 80 kilometers a day. Well, you can get an electric vehicle. You can get a hybrid. That'll allow you to do that on electricity only on a daily basis. That's a mental block. And that's why the auto industry and the government continue to say education is key. People need to know how far you can drive on these or how far you don't really travel every day. And so until we get over that hump, it becomes difficult to sell someone on an EV that quote unquote only has a 400 kilometer range. You only need that when you're going to the cottage

on vacation, a cross country trip. And in those cases, if you own the hybrid, for example, you can use gas, you could rent a vehicle to do those longer trips or tow those heavier things if you need them. And you mentioned the environmental component of this. How much of that is a factor for consumers themselves? I know what it is for the federal government has been pushing this as the future and for reducing our carbon footprint. But for the consumers themselves, how much of that factors into their decision making when they want to lay down some money for an EV? I don't think much. I think that people start out with those intentions. And then when they

see the price comparison in some cases, because here's the thing, study after study and report after report show that Canadians buy vehicles based on their monthly payment, not the sticker price, not the environmental good or bad a vehicle does, but how much can I afford as a line item in my monthly budget? And so while I think a lot of people think it's good to buy an electric vehicle or want to feel good about buying an electric vehicle, when they actually look into it in that bottom line early on, that monthly payment shows up as more than if they would buy a gas powered vehicle especially when gas prices fluctuate downward they choose the internal combustion engine instead early on the environmentalists who have the money they were buying vehicles for that specific purpose to do good for the planet um but as Bev Goodman, CEO for Canada,

told us at a conference about a year and a half ago, she felt we were out of early adopters. And my editor-in-chief, Jeff Belichick, said, I think we're out of early affluent adopters who care about the environment. At some point, you have to get to the mass market, to the middle class, to the people who can afford that $35,000 to $45,000

vehicle. And there just isn't one in the electric vehicle market yet that sort of is suitable for everyone. Yeah, I was reading something that the McKinsey Group did a survey in the US this year and said that 46% of current EV users would likely switch back to gas, which I found to be kind of surprising. But let me just push ahead because there was some news today about Japanese car makers, Honda and Nissan, that started plans to work towards a merger. And from what I've read, you know this better than I would. I mean, one of the big components of that merger would be to really focus their efforts in catching up in the EV market. So what impact do you think that that's going to have overall for the success of the EV industry? Yeah, I mean, if you go all the way back to the late Sergio Marchionne, who was head of Stellantis before Carlos Tavares, who just recently

quit, you know, Marchionne was a big believer in that automakers need to work together, share technology, share resources in order to get the price for electric vehicles down. And that's what you would see in a merger of this type. Both have some electric offerings. Nissan has more than Honda. Honda has plans to build more electric vehicles in Ontario, in fact. But when you get automakers of that size together working on projects such as this. It leads to economies of scale.

It drives the price of production down. And ultimately, that is the only way that prices will fall. So mergers and acquisitions in the auto industry are something we've kind of been keeping our eye on because it's been long talked about since the electric revolution started. That automakers are going to have to share their supply chains, share their technology. And in some places in the U.S., there are automakers who share factories together. And that you might end up seeing more and more of that as they try and drive the price of the vehicles down. Greg, I've only got about less than a minute left. I just want one question for you about Donald Trump. I mean, could this be the guy who kills the electric vehicle? I don't think he kills it.

I think he keeps prices high. I think that is the safer way to go about this. Automakers have invested way too much money in electrification to simply just say, oh, I guess we won't make them anymore. And we'll convert that factory that's brand new into something else. I think they'll continue to make electric vehicles. I think you will see a higher percentage of hybrids as automakers try and build more of those. I don't think he kills them. I just think he keeps the prices high for a very long time for his four-year tenure. Greg, great to talk to you this morning.

Really appreciate your time. Any problem. Greg Lawson is a digital and mobile editor at Automotive News Canada. He's in Windsor, Ontario. He's an auto journalist there. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.