Browsing CBC's web site earlier today, I came across an article talking about yet another push toward the use of electric vehicles. A Chinese company plans to market its electric vehicle on the US west coast later this year. Now I know I've talked about greening the auto industry before but it was not the news of the car that tweaked my interest but one of the comments made by a reader.

The comment basically said that, had GM decided not to stop the development of electric cars back in the 90's, in favour of oil guzzling vehicles, we might have cleaner air and not have had to buoy up the big three car makers with huge amounts of tax dollars. Fueled by their ties to the oil industry (no pun intended!), back then North American car makers chose to ignore the opportunity to lead the world in the development of clean automobile production.

Whether we choose to ignore it or not, oil will run out eventually or will become too costly to extract. It's not like we're saying this is thousands of years away, more likely in our lifetime. I just watched a show last week about what would happen in the aftermath of the world's supply of oil running out.  It was not a pretty picture but that day will come. That's why I still have a hard time understanding why we are so far behind where we should be when it comes to being able to provide inexpensive cleaner fuel supplies.

Employment in the local transportation equipment industry has been hit hard. We have the opportunity to go green and local manufacturers have and need opportunities to diversify product lines. Developing and manufacturing these technologies here would provide long term employment and sustainable employment growth from assembly workers all the way to engineers. North America is still way behind but locally we could make Waterloo Region THE centre of excellence in manufacturing on the continent. Something to think about next time you fill up…. or plug in.

If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact me at carol@workforceplanningboard.com