General Motors Co. says it is investing $691 million to upgrade its propulsion plant in St. Catharines, Ont., where it makes V-8 engines for SUVs and pick-up trucks. The investment comes after the automaker in February laid off 500 workers and cut the third shift at its Oshawa, Ont., plant. In 2025, it also closed its plant in Ingersoll, Ont., where it made the BrightDrop electric delivery vans, due to low demand after spending $1 billion . GM’s investment will allow its St. Catharines plant to become the third plant in North America able to produce the company’s sixth-generation V-8 engines . The other two plants, both located in the United States, received slightly higher investment amounts in prior years. “It gives the St. Catharines plant a key role in one of our most important segments,” Ariane Souza Pereira, a General Motors Canada spokesperson, said. “I would say it’s another proof point of GM’s commitment to Canada.” Automakers face an uncertain market when it comes to customer demand. GM said the investment in St. Catharines will allow it to meet what it anticipates will be high demand for “full-size pick-up trucks in North America.” But it also sells more EVs in Canada than any other company, with its first-quarter sales up 13.1 per cent year over year. EV demand in Canada has been volatile. At the end of 2024, EVs accounted for 18.9 per cent of all new vehicle sales, but it then fell below 10 per cent for most of 2025, according to S&P Global Inc. There are signs that demand could rebound again as gas prices rise. More broadly, automakers with operations in Canada are facing pressure on several fronts. Last year, the U.S. government placed 25 per cent tariffs on finished vehicles and on non-U.S. content within the vehicles and 50 per cent tariffs on key inputs such as steel and aluminum. These new levies in their main export market forced a utomakers to change their supply chains at a cost of billions of dollars. Chinese EV makers also pose a looming threat. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Mark Carney struck a deal to allow Chinese automakers to bring in 49,000 EVs at a 6.1 per cent tariff rate — about 29 per cent of all EVs sold in Canada in 2025 — and said he eventually expects half of those vehicles to be priced under $35,000. Greig Mordue, a professor at McMaster University in Hamilton who studies the auto sector, said the industry consensus is still that EVs will eventually account for most of the demand, but the timeline remains subject to debate. In the meantime, Chinese EV makers continue to lock up supply chains for critical minerals and advance the technology. Canada seeks to claw back GM funding after Ontario job cutsGM axes third shift at Oshawa plant, laying off hundreds of workers “We have to get through a lot of rough years because we’re behind,” Mordue said. But he said the auto sector creates so many upstream and downstream jobs that the government will likely work to protect it. gfriedman@postmedia.com