Former number 1 in the battery industry who worked for GM denounces construction costs in Quebec

“I think we are going to hit big walls,” warns the former senior director of the battery sector at Investissement Québec (IQ), today a lobbyist for the American manufacturer General Motors (GM), which goes as far as talk about a “perfect storm” seeing construction costs explode and productivity lag behind in Quebec.

The former senior director of Battery Strategy and Strategic Initiatives at Investissement Québec (IQ), Simon Thibault, today leader of critical materials for electric vehicles for the manufacturer GM, recently denounced the slowness in construction here in the newspaper Business.

“It is at this point where we are going to question future investments in Quebec. We must learn to control our construction costs in Quebec because in the long term, it will not work, that’s for sure,” insists the man who became a lobbyist for GM less than a month after abandoning his key position at IQ.

15% to 20% more

According to him, building a factory in Quebec would cost “three times more expensive” than in South Korea and “15% to 20% more than in the state of Tennessee.”

Worse still, the productivity deficit would mean that the plant here would need a good four months longer than its similar one in Tennessee, again according to Simon Thibault, who did not want to speak with The Journal after the interview he gave to Affaires.

For Éric Côté, CEO of the Corporation des entrepreneurs général du Québec (CEGQ), Simon Thibault’s words are spot on.

His association has just made representations, in the study of Bill 51, to find ways to increase productivity. “When the time comes to choose a site, foreign investors are spoiled for choice and seek to maximize the investment,” he illustrates.

“Several of our members are in contact with these investors. They must explain why it is more complex, and therefore more expensive, in Quebec,” he maintains.

Public funds

While GM reaped profits of nearly $13 billion last year, the manufacturer is still in discussions with the Quebec government for “financing (subsidies, loans or others)”, if we rely on the register lobbyists, who indicates that his mandate is still active.

In May 2023, Quebec provided a $151.87 million loan to Ultium CAM, a limited partnership of General Motors (GM) and POSCO Future M, for the $600 million battery materials production plant of 200 jobs, in Bécancour, in Center-du-Québec.

Highlights

At the end of September, The Journal reported that the Administrative Labor Tribunal (TAT) had ruled on the idea that Ultium CAM had indeed contravened the Charter of the French Language (CLF) in the case of a worker pushed to go through the hiring process in Englishin the heart of the Energy Transition Valley.

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