After yesterday’s cryptic news brief, we finally know what’s in store for GM’s Canadian Engineering Centre (Center, for those south of the Great White North) in Oshawa, Ontario: GM will grow it into an innovation hub for the “connected car” and green technologies.
At this point it’s unclear whether that means the CEC will help develop future connected vehicle technologies such as OnStar 4G LTE and Wi-Fi, Super Cruise, some other yet-unseen type of connected vehicle tech, or something else entirely.
While GM Canada does not actually say “Super Cruise” or “V2V” anywhere in the release, it does say that the CEC’s activities include “development of new software and active controls that allow customers to take advantage of high-speed data links between automobiles and mobile networks.” Definitely sound like some sort of connected mobile technology to us. What we can say for sure is that the CEC is now looking to hire to more than 100 software and controls engineers to support its new “connected car” mandate.
GM Canada manages approximately $190-million in R&D work per year with a range of Canadian suppliers and universities. Work at the CEC, as well as its cold-weather testing facility in Kapuskasing, Ontario, is helping to make the automobile “more connected and more sustainable.”
As for its green cred, the CEC also works on lightweight and advanced materials and alternative fuels, with the aim of improving help improve fuel economy.
“We have long been proud of GM Canada’s unique capability in Canada to design and engineer future products for our customers and our solid portfolio of patents and project breakthroughs,” said Steve Carlisle, President and Managing Director, GM Canada.
“Innovations in connected car and environmental technologies are key elements of how we’re developing great new vehicles with features that customers really want. I recently spent time in Canada…and it’s clear that they’re ready to take our Oshawa engineering operation to the next level,” said Mark Reuss, GM Executive Vice President, Global Product Development.
The new investment and job announcement might pale in comparison to some of GM’s other investments across the world, but it goes to show that GM isn’t quite done with Oshawa just yet.
Comments
Well, when Canada’s car manufacturing industry is fading fast due to high union costs and a little bit of delusion, you have to find something for them to do. Becoming a supporting technical center is one way to soften the blow.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t become another Canadian flop like Blackberry…Although there are probably a lot of software engineers from that debacle now getting some employment from GM.
I really dig the “in your face, I’m going to eat you” look of this thing!
Well done, hope it moves forward!