“Yes, this is the right place for us”: Pierre Boutin on how VW is powering Canada’s shift to EVs

Pierre Boutin, the jovial chief executive of Volkswagen Canada, recently announced that he’s stepping down after four years in the role — but not before making a significant impact in the country. He’s now headed to Europe where he previously held senior leadership positions with VW.

Vancouver Tech Journal spoke to the bilingual Canadian earlier this year, and he reflected on the value of changing one's professional scenery. In hindsight, he was qualifying why — after helping to put a multi-billion-dollar electric battery vehicle plant in St. Thomas, Ontario, and bringing VW’s first fully electric vehicle to market in Canada, among other achievements — he’s moving on again.

“Every country you go to, you're confronted with different challenges based on your education and your values,” he says in a private room at the Vancouver Convention Centre. “You know, you have filters, right? And it was a great learning experience being in France. I was in Hungary for some time, too. I went to Russia for a few years. And everywhere people can teach you a lot about, obviously, their environment, the business, but a lot about yourself through the interactions you're having.”

Boutin is here on the West Coast for Fully Charged Live, an EV enthusiast's dream, and as part of a panel meant to ask the question, “Will we ever see cheaper, smaller electric vehicles in North America?” Boutin sat down with Vancouver Tech Journal for an exclusive conversation about VW’s Canadian investments, its plans to tap into local talent, what’s driving EV sales, and how elections in Canada and the U.S. may impact the car dealer’s future on the continent.

This interview was condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

What’s the state of Volkswagen in Canada?

Volkswagen Group Canada has many brands, including Audi, Volkswagen, and Lamborghini. We also service associate partners at Ducati, Bentley, and Bugatti. We work with Electrify Canada, as well as PowerCo, which is another subsidiary of our company, that makes investments on behalf of the group.

What I’m responsible for includes 200 dealerships and 400 staff. Pre-COVID, we were selling about 120,000 vehicles a year, so probably four or five percent of the market in Canada. We have aspirations to grow, and that's why we are making investments in North America. We're very strong in China and Europe, but we need a third leg, and it's North America. That's the focus. For me, coming back to Canada was a way to contribute to bringing forward stronger business for Canada within the North American context.

So we're here at FullyCharged, focused on EVs. Why is VW here?

We’re here because we aim to make a substantial impact on the future of mobility. We want it to be sustainable. And for us, it's natural. If we aim to play a leadership role, we have to go where people have an interest in this transformation.

When we talk about the electric vehicle, and we want to play a major role – so we've got a lot of things to learn and a lot of things to do. I don't pretend we know everything. So this environment helps us demonstrate what we bring to the party, demonstrate our strength and what we can do. At the same time, we’re also building bridges with others, and certainly with consumers, which is absolutely essential for us.

If I go online to buy an ID.4, Volkswagen’s flagship EV, I can’t get one. What are you doing about that?

First, we’ve built a North American factory, which just opened up last fall. We’re increasing production, but it requires double-checking, triple-checking, quadruple-checking quality. Plus, we’ve got to build all of the supply chain around it. Now, the volumes are increasing in a very substantial manner from probably two years wait time when we arrived with the ID.4. We're well below a year's wait time, and I believe we're going to be just in a matter of a few weeks' wait time by the spring of next year.

We're also building this battery cell manufacturing facility in Canada and it's going to be capable of equipping up to one million battery electric vehicles in the future.

VW is putting that battery plant in St. Thomas, Ontario. Is it just all about subsidies and money? Or is there anything else about Canada which makes it an ideal business environment to build that?

It's a very good question. First of all, we had over 200 criteria for the decision. The first element was we wanted to grow the North American footprint of Volkswagen.

If you look at why Canada, there are certainly a lot of elements, but I'll give you just a few, starting with accessibility to critical minerals. Canada is among the two countries in the world where you can find all of the critical minerals necessary to build a battery. Secondly, automotive business is already an important part of the GDP in Canada, and Canada is investing in its future as a major global player in the automotive world.

Canada has one of the cleanest mining infrastructures and some of the strongest, most robust standards in mining in the world, which is extremely important for us. There's also a history of doing better with the Indigenous communities that are obviously impacted by any type of investment.

There are renewable sources of energy in Canada. And this is an essential point: it's not just about transforming the products, it's about transforming the way we build products. And for us, environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and economic sustainability have been extremely important in our decision-making process.

I'm going to stop there because as you can tell, I could go on for quite some time. There are major considerations that pushed us to consider Canada and to say, Yes, this is the right place for us.

How will VW tap into Canadian talent and expertise?

Our factory is going to be operational at the end of 2026 or 2027, and as we start to build, we’re looking to hire people for the PowerCo team. We also have colleagues from Europe coming over. We’re hiring at all levels of business that will interact with academia, government, suppliers and the mining industries. This obviously affects talent development.

I was even talking to a university recently, and we’re considering what kind of programs we could start developing for our colleagues, even just from a cultural integration standpoint.  So, definitely, you can be rest assured we're having a lot of conversations right now to attract this talent. We're getting a lot of good candidates knocking on our door, which we're delighted to see because there's a high level of interest.

In fact, during these discussions, Federal Innovation Minister Champagne said to us, “You guys need to talk to Xanada, the quantum computing company.” Our subsidiary decided to invest in the company, and they are helping us on the battery side to make them better.

This was not planned in the project. But as we started to interact with the community, our antennas went up and our ears were opened. And this is where we can see additional investments directly or indirectly, from us and some partners into other areas of the economy in Canada.

Who is buying EVs and how will you get them to buy VWs specifically?

We've always had pioneers. But what I see now is that it's starting to touch many areas of society. It was only the second family car. No longer. Now people are saying no, it can be my number one vehicle.

We’re also seeing a lot of retirees saying, ‘Hey, I want to do something that is right for my grandchild.’ It's got to be potentially my last car. So now there are many reasons why people go EV – there's an economical factor and also, when you drive around Vancouver right now for $2 a litre, people start pulling out the calculator and say, ‘Okay, what does that really mean?’

Ten percent of our sales this year in Canada are EVs — ID.4s. By the end of next year, we're going to be knocking on the door of 20 percent.

From a North American perspective, you have a U.S. election next year. Canada is due for one in 2024 or 2025. How will that impact your plans?

When we’re making investments like the St. Thomas factory, it’s not for two years or five years — it's going to be for decades and generations to come. So it's important for us to have a minimum level of predictable policies, because if policies are changed drastically, then all of a sudden it's not going to be inviting for anyone to invest in the decarbonization of e-mobility.

Do we have the perfect environment anywhere in the world in terms of legislation? I could argue no but at least everybody's headed in the same direction, or at least making commitments towards the environment and the decarbonization of mobility. And that's really important for Volkswagen, to see that any government in place is committing to reducing the C02 footprint of mobility and transportation.

The world is the world, democracies are democracies, and everywhere we go we adapt. And you know, we always have a choice — do you do business in a specific environment or not? But looking at Canada, I remain extremely optimistic about the potential. We've made some significant steps in the right direction to not only have an impact in Canada, but also in terms of overall mobility around the world. I think Canada will play a big role. And Volkswagen wants to play a big role, too.

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