Canada’s Auto Plan: Factory Support and Fleet Standards Measure Different Markets

01

A factory policy and a policy for the cars being sold

To translate Canadian auto policy into demand for components and materials, distinguish the cars made in a factory from the cars sold in the domestic market. Capital support acts on a production location. An emissions standard for a sales fleet—the relevant group of vehicles sold—acts on the mix supplied to a market. Even for one manufacturer, those populations need not coincide. A higher electric-vehicle share in Canadian sales leaves a practical question before it can imply more battery or steel orders from Canadian plants: where are those vehicles made, and where are they going?

Start with one plant or one item in a supplier’s order book. Put four fields in the worksheet: plant and country of production, sales destination, powertrain and model year. A battery-electric vehicle, or BEV, uses different components from an internal-combustion vehicle or a hybrid combining electric and combustion power. Specifications can also differ by destination even under the same model name. After reading a company-wide investment headline, identify what that plant makes and which customer market receives it. That makes the relevant policy channel much easier to locate.

The exercise is not a forecast of national vehicle sales. Consider a manufacturer that changes its Canadian sales mix by importing BEVs, and another that converts a Canadian plant to supply them. The same change in domestic sales can imply different local equipment demand. Conversely, a BEV made domestically and exported can contribute to factory electrification without directly raising the BEV share of Canadian sales. Comparing those cases shows how industrial support and a policy affecting the sales market can work through separate channels.

Bring factories and markets into one map

A materials supplier needs to take the mapping a step beyond the number of finished vehicles. Body sheet steel, drivetrain components and battery-cell materials can go to different customers and stages of production. Knowing that final assembly takes place in Canada does not establish that the cells are also sourced there. Add the actual supplied item to the worksheet, and distinguish final assembly from the place where that item enters production. The map then exposes the missing connections between a change in the sales mix and a change in the supplier’s own orders.

For investors and business managers, the distinction also helps interpret revenue. The company installing equipment, the company selling a car through a dealership and the company supplying materials do not necessarily earn revenue from a policy at the same time. Higher plant spending can create work for an equipment vendor while leaving demand for a particular battery material unchanged if the vehicle mix does not change. The policy’s significance depends on which connection in that chain produces the work of the company being examined.

02

Where the two policy channels intersect

On October 21, Canada and Ontario announced up to C$2.5 billion in additional automotive capital support over two years. [S1]

The announced light-duty fleet-average greenhouse-gas (GHG) path holds the 2026 level through model year 2029, with annual tightening from 2030. [S2] The announcement alone does not establish an amended regulation already in force.

The long-term objective is earlier context. The Prime Minister’s Office had already presented a goal of 75% EV sales by 2035 in its February 5, 2026 auto strategy. [S3] Near-term flexibility therefore sits alongside a longer-term direction of change. That makes it useful to map which equipment a company retains, what it converts and which vehicles it sells.

Separate earlier policy from the new announcement

Capital support can affect the decision to spend on a plant. Reducing part of the cost of equipment may make a project easier to undertake even when its future sales remain uncertain. A sales-market standard instead bears on the decision about which vehicles to offer customers. Both may affect the same company, but the supported equipment and the company’s full range of vehicles supplied to that market need not cover the same scope. Finding the intersection between them is the starting point for assessing orders.

Calling the package simply positive or negative without locating that intersection mixes two different arguments. Greater room to continue with existing products does not remove every reason to buy equipment for future products. Easier access to capital support does not ensure immediate sales for what the equipment will make. Put the channel affecting the company’s investment budget and the channel affecting customer purchases in separate columns. That allows the conditions supporting investment and the conditions needed to use the equipment fully to be assessed in their own right.

Focusing on those channels also produces specific questions for company documents. Is the planned spending a replacement of an existing line, a conversion to another powertrain, or an expansion of the same model? Is its output intended for domestic sales or customers abroad? Matching the intended use of the machinery with the market described in the sales plan can reveal whether the policy elements support the same project or reach separate businesses. A country name or a corporate name cannot fill that gap on its own.

03

Four cases at the intersection of production and destination

In Justice Canada’s consolidation through September 30, 2026, fleets are organized by company, model year and vehicle class, covering domestic manufacture and imports while excluding documented exports. This establishes the reporting boundary, not enactment of the October 21 policy. [S4]

The first case is a vehicle made in Canada and sold in Canada. It lies where domestic factory activity and the domestic sales fleet overlap. If equipment changes support that model and the company also decides to supply more of it to the Canadian market, the two policy channels can reach the same product. Final assembly in the same country, however, does not establish the location of battery or electronic-component production. After identifying the intersection for the finished vehicle, the supplier still needs to trace sourcing for the specific item in its order book.

The second case is a vehicle made in Canada and exported. It matters for domestic employment and production equipment, but its sales also depend on prices, purchase conditions, competing products and rules in the destination market. Inferring the product mix of an export line solely from Canadian sales-market conditions skips the market where the buyer is located. Even an increase in exported BEVs need not change the domestic sales mix by the same proportion. That is why the country of manufacture and the country of demand need separate fields.

Where exports and imports enter the count

The third case is a vehicle built abroad and imported into Canada. It can enter the domestic sales population while its final-assembly work takes place overseas. If a manufacturer changes its sales mix through imports, Canadian dealerships and logistics operations may gain activity without a corresponding increase in Canadian assembly. A component supplier should also identify whether its deliveries for that vehicle go to the overseas factory or to domestic service and distribution networks. The word import can conceal several different kinds of work.

The fourth case is a vehicle built abroad and sold abroad. It may be part of the same corporate group’s revenue and investment, yet it falls outside both Canadian production and Canadian sales. Large consolidated figures can bring this population into a comparison unnoticed. Substituting a company-wide EV share for the Canadian plant’s share can make a conversion look either further advanced or further behind than it is. Keeping the company, plant and market as separate units prevents vehicles carrying the same brand from being mistaken for the same population.

When examining a sales fleet, do not exchange a manufacturer-specific population for the national market. A change in one company’s sales mix is different from a change in buyers’ choices across all manufacturers. Each company can also have a different combination of imports and domestic production. Applying the national average to one firm may assign it vehicles actually supplied by another. Start the worksheet within a consistent scope for a single manufacturer, then make comparisons between companies after those boundaries are clear.

For the route from purchasing to cash collection, Trace lead times, inventories and cash.

04

Reconcile 100 vehicles produced with 150 vehicles sold

Use one fictional manufacturer, Company A, to put numbers around the boundary. Every vehicle count is illustrative, not an observation about a real manufacturer or the Canadian market. Over the same comparison period, assume its Canadian factory produces 100 vehicles: 20 BEVs and 30 internal-combustion vehicles sold in Canada, plus 50 internal-combustion vehicles exported. The production record totals 100 when domestic and export destinations are combined. Start by keeping the vehicles leaving the factory in those three separate rows. The exercise uses one company, one model year and one vehicle class, with new vehicles intended for first retail sale; cross-company duplication and inventory carryover are excluded.

Assume that Company A also imports 40 BEVs and 60 internal-combustion vehicles from foreign plants and sells them in Canada. Its domestic sales record contains the 50 vehicles from the Canadian factory plus those 100 imports, for a total of 150. The 50 exports remain in domestic production but leave the domestic sales total. The 100 imports do the reverse: they enter Canadian sales without entering Canadian factory production. Those two movements explain why totals change even when the company and comparison period remain the same.

BEVs account for 20 of the 100 vehicles produced by the Canadian factory, giving a production share of 20%. In Canadian sales, the 20 domestically made BEVs plus 40 imported BEVs make 60 out of 150 vehicles, or 40%. Neither figure is erroneous; they answer different questions. The first describes what the factory made. The second describes what Company A sold to customers in Canada. Writing the denominator beside each share explains how 20% and 40% can both be correct for the same company.

Calculate the two denominators

If the reader takes only the 40% Canadian sales share and applies it to the factory’s 100 vehicles, the result is an invented 40 domestically produced BEVs. The factory record contains 20. The extra 20 have no basis in domestic production. Carrying the same mistake into a component estimate could overstate the number of batteries needed for vehicles assembled domestically. The example, however, specifies no battery capacity, sourcing country or inventory. Correcting the vehicle share still does not produce an actual battery order quantity.

There is a second way to reconcile the totals: subtract the 50 exports from domestic production of 100, then add 100 imports, and the result returns to 150 domestic sales. This simple identity assumes production and sales finish within the same period and leaves inventory changes out of the illustration. A real-company reconciliation must allow for vehicles produced but not yet sold, or vehicles sold from a previous period’s inventory. An unexplained residual should not be assigned to imports or BEVs merely to make the preferred account balance.

To replace Company A with a real subject, begin with rows for domestic plant to domestic market, domestic plant to export market, and foreign plant to domestic market, rather than entering a headline total first. Record models and powertrains within each row, and check that no vehicle is counted twice. A component supplier can then draw a connection to its own delivery location. Whether that line reaches a Canadian plant or a foreign plant changes the route from a shifting sales mix to new work. A missing connection identifies a concrete question for the next company document.

05

An emissions average changes with the vehicles included

Keep the fictional Company A and calculate a simple emissions average. Assume every internal-combustion vehicle has an illustrative value of 180 grams per mile and every BEV has a value of zero for exhaust emissions. These are not measured values; they show how selecting vehicles changes an average. They say nothing about lifecycle emissions from electricity generation, fuel supply or battery production. The example also omits differences in individual vehicle performance. Its result concerns aggregation, not the size of one technology’s environmental advantage over another.

The Canadian factory’s 100 vehicles consist of 20 BEVs and 80 internal-combustion vehicles. Weighting the assumptions by vehicle count gives (20 × 0 + 80 × 180) ÷ 100, or 144 grams per mile. The 50 internal-combustion exports enter this calculation because it counts the vehicles the factory produced. Irrespective of which emissions rules might apply at their destinations, this calculation simply summarizes the factory’s product mix. The meaning of the average follows from the vehicles retained in its denominator.

The 150 vehicles sold in Canada instead contain 60 BEVs and 90 internal-combustion vehicles. With the same assumed values, (60 × 0 + 90 × 180) ÷ 150 gives 108 grams per mile. The difference between 144 and 108 does not result from a better engine or a change in any individual vehicle’s performance. It comes from replacing the vehicles made by Company A’s Canadian factory with the vehicles Company A sold in Canada. When reading about a lower average, asking whether performance or composition changed makes the number more informative.

What the simple average cannot establish

Neither number is a fleet result calculated under Canadian law. The exercise does not incorporate the regulated vehicle population, categories, calculation procedures or credits, and cannot determine compliance. Nor can the two figures be placed beside a government standard and read as a pass or fail. Giving an illustrative average the name of a statutory result would turn an exercise about population boundaries into an unsupported regulatory judgment. Ordinary averaging and the formal calculation required by a regulation have to be read on their own terms.

Moving from vehicle counts to materials requires another step. BEVs can have different battery capacities, and orders for components can change through inventory adjustments or sourcing decisions even at the same production volume. Multiplying the vehicle count by a national average capacity can introduce models unrelated to the plant being examined. After aligning the vehicle populations in Company A’s example, the next inputs are the specifications of the relevant models, the entity purchasing the component and the receiving factory. Those connections make an emissions-average headline useful for a supplier’s own order analysis.

06

The capital-support period and the vehicle model year use different clocks

Placing a capital-support period and a model year into identical calendar boxes can misstate the sequence between investment and sales. A model year helps identify a vehicle specification or regulatory population; it does not identify the day machinery is paid for. A plant project can have separate dates for ordering equipment, installation, trial production and sales of completed vehicles. Put the relevant product in the model-year field and the actual payment terms in the funding field. That lets the reader track vehicles and spending separately.

The announced two-year duration cannot be divided evenly between particular calendar years. Treating the announcement date as every project’s spending start, then assigning half to each of two years, would impose an invented alignment between public support and company cash spending. An equipment vendor wants to know when its advance payment or acceptance payment is due. A component supplier may instead need the start of volume production. Retaining several dates within the same project makes it easier to locate the relevant financing need.

For a plant conversion, separate the processes that stop from those that continue. Replacing part of an assembly system within the same building is different work from reorganizing an entire process for another product. Whether changes can occur during production or require downtime affects transitional revenue and inventory. A support total does not reveal that distinction. Identifying the line and product lets the reader ask whether the investment preserves an existing supply capability or creates the ability to make something different.

Equipment readiness and vehicle-sales timing

A product change may require component checks and customer coordination after the equipment is installed. A model using new dimensions, a different drivetrain or another material may need more than an increase in an existing order. Separating small trial orders from continuing volume-production orders helps show how equipment purchasing connects to production preparation. Extending a prototype order directly into an annual production estimate would count initial development work as recurring demand. The nature of the order therefore matters alongside its date and size.

There are reasons both to prepare equipment early and to wait. Earlier readiness for a future product can improve the ability to supply customers when demand develops. Large spending on dedicated machinery before product choices settle can instead leave awkward assets if customers choose another specification. Preparing a process usable across products has a different significance from committing to equipment for one model, even at the same investment value. Examining what the company can still change is more informative than judging investment as early or late from its amount alone.

One useful way to connect a policy period with company preparation is to work backwards from the model year in which the product is intended to be sold. Identify the processes that must operate, the components that must arrive and the equipment that must be accepted before that specification can be supplied. Use schedules stated by the company or its customer rather than filling every step with a standard number of months. Connecting eligible project spending with the intended sales window makes the path across the transition concrete.

07

SG Group View: assess near-term flexibility and future capacity separately

SG Group does not regard support for future manufacturing equipment as pointless merely because near-term sales conditions allow more flexibility. Money may have to be committed before sales decisions are made if equipment is to be ready when customers need it. Support can have value by preserving the option to supply future products domestically, even while the current vehicle mix remains unchanged. That value lies in the capability retained. It should be assessed separately from an observed increase in near-term production or materials orders.

A strong counterargument is that less urgency on the sales side can also let companies postpone dedicated equipment. Waiting can be rational despite support when future customer preferences remain unsettled. In that case, the constraint is not simply a shortage of funding; it is uncertainty about the product that will use the asset. Testing this argument requires more than seeing whether a headline investment total remains unchanged. More useful evidence is whether the company identifies the line and intended products more specifically.

Another possibility is that the same factory spends both to preserve current output and to prepare future products. Maintaining today’s process while progressively changing the parts needed for another specification can make equipment conversion and sales conversion look unlike one another. That is not automatically either delay or progress. The useful question is whether spending on shared processes serves future products as well as existing ones. Answering it reveals the two kinds of capability retained within the plant and the further work needed for a later change.

When flexibility could support investment

Export options can also change the company’s decision. Near-term domestic sales conditions may offer little urgency, yet customers in another market may require a future specification that justifies preparing the plant. Conversely, a factory expecting export demand can lose orders to another location through transport costs, prices or commercial terms even after its capability is ready. Connecting the place receiving domestic support with the place where the paying customer is located allows the analysis to move beyond one country’s sales share.

For a materials supplier, counterevidence appears in the content of customer orders. An equipment project thought to support electrification has a weak connection to expected battery demand if its orders concern only the renewal of existing models. The case strengthens when the relevant model is linked to a receiving plant and items for volume production appear. A purchase order need not be a universal prerequisite for assessing a policy announcement. But when the claim becomes one about orders, evidence of what was ordered and by whom changes the assessment.

08

Steel and traction batteries reach orders through different channels

More factory investment need not increase steel and battery orders in the same proportion. Material requirements depend on the vehicles being produced and their design. Steel used in bodies and components can serve both battery-electric and internal-combustion vehicles. Assessing orders for EV traction-battery cells requires the planned models and assembly volumes, as well as where their cells and packs will be sourced. An amount allocated to factory support does not resolve those differences.

For batteries, distinguish cell production, pack assembly and installation in a vehicle. Plans to install batteries at a vehicle plant do not establish that the cells are domestically made. Investment in a domestic battery factory likewise does not determine whether the vehicles using its output will be sold at home. These are separate procurement and sales choices. A battery plant’s name and an electric model’s label are insufficient to connect the two investment plans as the same order.

Demand is more strongly supported when assembly plans and supplier disclosures connect to the same model and model year. A supplier’s expansion can concern Canadian-market vehicles, export models or replacement parts, each with different implications. Buying materials to build inventory is also different from recurring orders driven by higher vehicle output. Returning from purchase timing to the product and use requiring those quantities allows a narrower, better-supported account of the policy connection.

Before translating a vehicle mix into material demand, Compare electrification demand with material-supply stages.

09

Suppliers need to connect the contracted product to its destination

A component or material supplier first needs to establish the product behind an order, not merely the customer’s factory name. One plant may serve several models and destinations. Investment at the plant can continue while a supplier loses business if the model using its component changes. Connect the model, powertrain and model year to the contracted part number or purchase order rather than translating factory news directly into product revenue.

Destination belongs beside the product. An order for a vehicle assembled domestically and sold abroad faces different sales conditions from one for a Canadian-market vehicle. Where demand and competing launches in the export market matter, a Canadian-market fleet announcement cannot explain the order by itself. Even domestic-market orders may be constrained by import competition or dealer inventories. Leaving destination blank prevents the relevant policy channel from being identified.

Matching model years fixes the product generation covered by the contract. Equipment purchased during a calendar year need not supply vehicles sold in that same year. Combining incremental orders for an existing model with prototypes for a successor merges current production demand with a future possibility. Instead of asking only whether the customer will expand, ask which model year and market the relevant part number will serve.

Trace the customer and specification

Retain order status as a condition attached to any quantity. Volumes in a quotation request, volumes reserving capacity and an order specifying delivery dates and quantities do not affect supplier cash in the same way. Even with matching products and destinations, amendment or cancellation terms alter the burden of buying materials in advance. Future quantities in a table cannot all be added to firm revenue without reading the contractual conditions. Those distinctions are closer to the supplier’s exposure than the size of an investment headline.

If a company discloses only aggregate backlog, do not allocate it to domestic EV production without evidence. It may cover other models, countries or replacement demand. Regional or product-group disclosures can narrow the scope even when part-level information is unavailable. Leave unsupported fields unresolved, and do not portray the announcement as creating all existing backlog afresh. Use the same part number to distinguish new business from continuation of an existing order.

This mapping is an exercise in interpreting orders, separate from a legal decision on eligibility for support. A customer’s potential inclusion in a programme does not automatically change a supplier’s contract. Price adjustments, minimum purchase quantities and material-cost pass-through require the relevant contract or a formal customer explanation. Establishing the plant–product–destination match before deciding what to prepare helps avoid planning for unrelated demand.

When a parts business changes its perimeter, Map the perimeter of an automotive-parts business.

10

How the effects could reach buyers, workers and markets

Several decisions separate factory support from the price paid by a household. The outcome depends on manufacturer pricing, dealer discounts and the powertrains buyers choose. A lower equipment-cost burden is not automatically passed through to purchasers. Distinguishing preservation of domestic product choice from a reduction in purchase costs avoids dividing a support amount into an assumed per-vehicle discount.

Electric-vehicle price comparisons also extend beyond domestic factories. Import prices, exchange rates, freight, inventories and financing terms affect competition. More imported models could change sales composition without changing domestic investment. Conversely, domestic capacity to build EVs need not translate into sales if their price or specifications do not meet buyers’ preferences. Factory-capacity news and quotations for comparable vehicles answer different questions.

For workers, the model allocated to their production line matters. Even with an unchanged plant headcount, a product change could affect hours, duties and training needs. Continuing export-oriented combustion production and switching to Canadian-market EVs can both be described as preserving a factory, while requiring different work. Employment announcements are more informative when they identify the line and product concerned.

Who receives the costs and benefits

Where equipment is being replaced, downtime and working arrangements during the change are separate concerns. A plan maintaining future output does not necessarily provide the same working hours during conversion. More hours today likewise do not guarantee continuity into the next model. The relevant evidence concerns the line’s schedule, conversion work and formal arrangements for staffing and training, rather than the national EV share. Those conditions determine the channel to household income.

The earnings channel for investors also extends beyond vehicle volumes. Continuing an existing model may improve equipment utilisation, while competitive price cuts or conversion costs may constrain profits. For battery and steel suppliers, higher volumes with delayed material-cost pass-through can cause revenue and profit to diverge. A programme label is insufficient to value a business; disclosures must establish changes in product volumes, prices, costs and investment plans.

International capital and trade flows appear in separate transactions for equipment, cells and processed materials, as well as finished vehicles. If support for a Canadian plant finances equipment purchased abroad, the installation site and the recipient of the equipment payment differ. Domestic assembly using imported cells can place vehicle exports and component imports within the same plan. When linking the policy to trade values, identify the transaction stage as well as the final market; support directed at a domestic plant is not all revenue earned by domestic suppliers.

For the foundations of employment and pay transmission, Compare investment, productivity and pay.

11

A pause could enable retooling—or delay battery orders

The competing explanation is that less pressure to accelerate EV sales postpones orders for related equipment and components. If manufacturers extend existing models, traction-battery suppliers may not receive orders at the previously expected time. Orders for steel-containing parts used in those models could nevertheless continue. Product-level effects can therefore point in opposite directions even when aggregate auto investment has not fallen.

Product cycles and buyer preferences can also dominate the result. A delayed model launch could alter production plans even without regulatory flexibility. Lower prices for competing vehicles could make a supported plant’s models harder to sell. Comparing orders only before and after the announcement risks attributing those product-specific effects to policy. Follow what changed within the same model, destination and model year.

When comparing these explanations, separate an extended schedule from an ultimately cancelled order. Preserved quantities with adjusted delivery dates call for a different supplier response from replacement of the component itself. A retooling interpretation weakens if orders for the relevant components fail to materialise. An order-loss interpretation needs revision if quantities for the same product remain intact and only agreed delivery dates move. Both hypotheses can be tested against the orders concerned.

For export economics, Separate the currencies of export receipts and payments.

12

Compare domestic BEVs, domestic combustion vehicles and exports

When a domestic plant builds BEVs for domestic buyers, investment and the home-market sales mix can connect through the same vehicles. Battery sourcing still needs separate verification. Higher output may merely replace the manufacturer’s imported BEVs, so its domestic BEV sales share need not rise by the same amount. Evidence connecting the model’s domestic production, domestic deliveries and cell or component orders would support the interpretation. If any element serves another market, revise that part of the inference.

For domestically built combustion vehicles sold at home, continued use of an existing line could preserve demand for adopted components and steel processing. That provides no basis for projecting higher BEV traction-cell output. Separately verified equipment orders for a successor model could support an assessment of future demand within that scope. Conversely, growing inventories followed by reductions in the same model’s output or parts orders would weaken the view that factory support preserves current orders. The relevant quantity concerns the product, not simply the whole plant.

For combustion vehicles built for export, continued domestic factory investment does not add those vehicles to the Canadian-market fleet. Buyers abroad support production, and competition and trading conditions there reach the order book. Steel and component suppliers could obtain demand through this route, but cannot derive its volume from the home-market emissions mix. Lower export orders or shipments would require revising an expectation of preserved business based solely on the plant’s inclusion in support.

Evidence that would change the assessment

If an export model changes to a BEV, separate battery demand at the domestic factory from electrification of domestic sales. Components could change at an unchanged domestic production volume, while the finished vehicles remain outside the domestic-sales table if shipped abroad. Domestic battery-related orders and the home-market BEV share need not rise together. Test the change using the export model’s powertrain and component adoption, rather than total exports alone.

13

Connect plants, products and destinations in your own worksheet

For a manual check, make each row a plant–product–destination combination. Use columns for plant, product, destination, powertrain, model year, source and order status. Separate different destinations even for products from the same plant. Keep different products, such as battery cells and finished vehicles, in separate rows too. The resulting table shows which information is needed—and which fields remain empty—before a factory announcement can explain domestic sales.

For the fictional manufacturer, place twenty domestic-market BEVs, thirty domestic-market combustion vehicles and fifty export combustion vehicles in the factory table. In the domestic-sales table, add forty imported BEVs and sixty imported combustion vehicles to the fifty locally made vehicles sold at home. Label the tables “domestic factory production” and “this manufacturer’s domestic sales.” Before calculating, check that imports have not entered the production table and exports have not entered the sales table.

BEVs make up twenty of the factory’s hundred vehicles, or 20%, and sixty of the manufacturer’s hundred and fifty domestic sales, or 40%. The difference is neither an arithmetic error nor a ranking in which one number is better. It comes from grouping vehicles made by the factory separately from vehicles the manufacturer sells at home. Add specifications and sourcing to the production table to examine battery procurement. Use the sales table, including imports, to examine domestic sales composition. These shares are not national forecasts.

Update the worksheet on consistent terms

With actual statistics, record the period and treatment of inventories. Vehicles produced during a period need not all be sold within it. Adding production, shipment, sales and registration figures as though they measured the same event can double-count vehicles or misread inventory movements as demand changes. When production and sales tables do not reconcile, examine their periods and measured events before filling the difference. The fictional exercise deliberately leaves out inventory changes.

To assess a later development, preserve the original table and compare the same combinations. A claim of more domestic output requires the same plant’s production; a claim about the domestic BEV sales share requires the same manufacturer’s domestic sales. Add the relevant part or cell order status when assessing material orders. If a field changes, record that separately from a quantity change, so that reassigning a destination from export to domestic is not counted as new production.

List evidence that can actually be checked, such as company product plans, investment explanations and order information. If public material does not identify a destination or quantity, leave the field unresolved and specify what would clarify it. A supplier can also use the table to frame questions for a customer without publishing confidential contracts or account information. The fictional values can be tested with paper and a calculator. The worksheet neither automates legal or contractual decisions nor forecasts national sales.

14

Use the next primary materials to identify which rows changed

For the application of a standard, return to the authority’s formal text and explanation of scope. Vehicles in an analytical sales table do not automatically match the legal calculation population. Identifying the covered businesses, vehicles, model years and methodology is necessary to interpret its application. A simple average or BEV share is not a formal emissions-compliance test. The direction of an announcement and the methodology actually used require their respective source materials.

For a factory, the company’s account of how products connect to equipment is the next useful evidence. Maintaining an existing model, adding a model and changing powertrains can create different material requirements at the same plant. Identifying the model and destination, beyond the country of production, narrows the connection to domestic sales. If investment amounts change, check whether the product and equipment remain the same. Larger announcements make it particularly necessary to isolate the portion relevant to a supplier’s component.

When statistics become available, compare domestic production and domestic sales over the same period, aligning powertrains and destinations where possible. Whether imports changed the sales mix or domestic factories changed their products alters the explanation of material orders. If the categories are too broad to distinguish the two, narrow the conclusion to what the data support. Higher national sales cannot by themselves establish orders for a particular domestic factory or battery supplier.

What to compare in the next document

Read changes in suppliers’ orders within the same product group. Establish whether they represent rescheduling of a pre-existing contract, adoption by a new model or cancelled quantities, then compare the retooling and demand-deferral explanations. Without evidence converting tentative quantities into firm orders, their connection to an investment plan remains a possibility. Continued ordering and delivery of the relevant product, conversely, could demonstrate factory demand not visible in the sales mix alone.

SG Group’s final assessment is that factory funding and home-market standards should not be combined into a single demand quantity. One concerns where products are made; analysis of the other concerns the vehicles sold domestically. Connecting them to steel or battery orders requires plant, product, destination, powertrain and model year. Readers can use the worksheet to identify the route relevant to an order and the evidence that would change their assessment.