April 17, 2026 - Stellantis Plan for Chinese EVs in Canada Rejected

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for April 17, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. 

The Stellantis assembly plant in Brampton, Ontario, near Toronto, hasn't produced a vehicle since the end of 2023, when production of the Chrysler 300 and the Dodge Charger and Challenger ended. As part of its most recent contract with Unifor, the union that represents Canadian auto workers, Stellantis had planned to retool the factory to produce the new generation of Jeep Compass. Work on the retooling had already begun, with production expected to start by the end of 2025. However, when Donald Trump launched a trade war against the rest of the world, which included a 25% tariff on everything imported from Canada, Stellantis promptly paused the project. Several months later, Stellantis announced that it would instead build the new Compass at its factory in Belvidere, Illinois, in 2027. 

Due to the Unifor contract, Stellantis was obligated to find another product to produce in Brampton. When Canada struck a trade deal with China earlier this year that would allow Chinese EVs to be sold there at a reduced tariff rate, Stellantis proposed a plan with its Chinese partner Leap Motor. Stellantis wanted to produce low-cost Leap Motor EVs in Brampton from complete knockdown kits. These kits are mostly complete vehicles that have been partially dismantled and are shipped to another factory for final assembly. Since only a modest amount of work is required to complete the vehicles, it would have only required about 200 to 300 employees rather than 3,000 that had worked there previously. 

Unsurprisingly, local government officials who had provided tax breaks for the retooling and the union rejected this option that could have been the first local production site for Chinese vehicles. Stellantis is now back to trying to develop a new plan to utilize Brampton. While it's likely that local, provincial, and federal governments in Canada would welcome any plan for new automakers to assemble vehicles there, it's going to have to be a full traditional assembly process, rather than just bolting on some wheels, seats, and other bits on a largely complete vehicle. 

Thanks for listening.