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Canada And The United States EV Dispute
One of the biggest news-worthy headlines for the 2021 year would have to be the ongoing argument between two familiar neighbours: Canada and the United States Of America. What is the problem and why does it have Canada on such high alarm? It is President Biden’s Build Back Better Act. It includes funding for COVID-19 relief, social services, welfare, and infrastructure, in addition to funds allocated towards reducing the effects of climate change. This all sounds good and promising, but the real problem within this is the propsal of the new tax credit that would give consumers up to $12,500 if they purchase a U.S. union-made electric vehicle. This means that if an American customer were to purchase an American vehicle built outside of the United States, they will not get any discounts.
Canadian-built American vechicles will become overshadowed by their American-built counterparts, thus resulting in job losses and possibly even result in the shutdowns of factories under more extreme circumstances. However, it is not Canadians alone that are against this bill, but non-unionized American companies as well. Tesla’s Elon Musk notably slammed Biden’s proposals and described the federal budget deficit as “insane” and unsustainable. It also does not help that the White House did not invite Tesla to the Electrify meeting in August 2021, nor was the company factually recognized as being the electric vehicle leader during the Grand Opening of General Motor’s Factory ZERO tour.
Will Canada Finally Make Its Own Companies?
Presently, the Canadian automotive industry functions almost exclusively as an industry that makes vehicles for foreign companies. While it has served the nation well in terms of job creation and productivity, it becomes noticeably problematic whenever a foreign company decides to move the production of popular models out, close factories altogether, or change credits and other policies. If Canada had its own wholly-made companies, it would not be hit so hard with such problems. Does it? Will Canada make any attempt to make its own Lucids, Rivans, and Teslas? Currently, the companies Canada has either only make parts, commerical vehicles or buses. Magna International is an internationally recognized parts and technology company that is wholly Canadian, that could make an electric vehicle. At the moment, there are no indications that it will. There is CanEV which converts combustion vehicles to battery electric ones. However, that is a small team that does not have the scale and volume for a full-blown electric car company. Lion Electric Company constructs electric school buses and trucks. With that expertise, they could be able to make light-duty electric trucks. However, there is no indication that they will be doing that at this time. As of December 2021, it comes down to 3 notable contenders: APMA, AK Motor International Corporation, and Trouvé Victory.
Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association
APMA is developing a crossover. The project is called Project Arrow, though it is unknown what the vehicle’s final name will be. For now it shall be assumed that the prototype is a namesake. The following words of the project are clear in large fonts on the website: Industry’s 1st all-Canadian, Zero-Emission Concept Vehicle. This means that it could be the first, proper, battery electric, consumer-oriented vehicle wholly-designed and built in Canada. The project lists the following phases:
Phase 1
Design Competition and Selection, Summer/Fall 2020
Phase 2
Engineering Specifications release and Supplier RFP, Winter/Spring 2021
Phase 3
Design Unveiling, 2022
Phase 4
Concept Car Release and Tour, 2023
Oddly, the timeline at the bottom of the page states that Phase 4 will happen in 2022. Given that the virtual design was revealed in 2021, the project received $5 million August 2021, and a rumor states that it is taking shape and benchmarking against the Volkswagen I.D. 4 and Tesla’s Model X, its possible that it could be 2022. Perhaps the phases above are the updated Phase dates, while the alternate Phase Dates may or may not be relevant anymore.
AK Motor International Corporation
Though the name suggests that it is a huge internationally established automotive company, AK Motor is a start-up company founded by Arkadiusz Kaminski, a Polish entrepreneur who now resides in Canada. As evidenced from the words on the website “Maple Majestic is a multi-cultural brand for a world market.” it is in the CEO’s vision to have the company not only make cars for Canadians, but for international markets as well. The product will be the Majestic Maple. This is supposed to be a 4-door all-electric sports car. It has the snub nose of a Telsa model 3, headlights that resemble certain Aston Martins, the smile of a Maserati, and taillights that resemble a Ferrari. Interestingly, the CEO himself said that the vehicle should not be looked at as a sedan, but a supercar with 4 doors. There are no prototypes at the moment, though a small scale model has been created, which was presented in February 2021. In September 2021, AK Motor made a press release stating it reached out to local parts suppliers, and technology developers for its Canadian EV project Maple Majestic. It reports significant milestones reached in bringing together the right partners for the project.
Trouvé Victory
Trouvé Victory is another Canadian eletric vehicle company also based in Ontario. It has an office in London, while the head office is located in Toronto. However, there is a lot of skeptism and doubts involved given the extreme timelines and grand claims for the Trouvé EV. Faruk Rama claims that the vehicles will be built in 2023, and that he has already sealed the deal for a factory east of Toronto. He has not revealed the exact location, though Durham Region sounds likely. Flavio Volpe, Senior Management of APMA, expressed that he has never heard of them, and that it takes a lot of time, resources, and safety testing for vehicles to be produced. Nevertheless, he said that he respects the hustle. Rama says the company has lined up suppliers, investors, and financial support. The Ontario plant will employ about 1,000 when production begins in 2023, he claims. Trouvé Victory has $3 billion in backing, support from investors in Oman, as well as other private-sector money and funding from Ontario and federal governments, he says, declining to reveal details. Neither the Federal Government nor reliable media reports have said anything about Trouvé Victory at this time.
The next area to question would be the vehicle’s claims: 1,000 KM of range on a single charge, 18 minute quick charge, and 4 hours overnight full charge. The company did not reveal how much range is restored for the 18 minute quick charge. Presently, the Lucid Air Dream Edition offers 836 kilometres of range. While all of these claims are certainly possible, they have yet to be proven with a working prototype.
Finally, it should be noted that while Faruk Rama does at least have a LinkedIn page to showcase some of this credentials, CFO Peter Monchuk’s credentials do not appear to be listed anywhere. The media page of the website futher fuels doubts given its lack of concrete acknowledgement from some of the news sources they have alledgedly spoke with. Nevertheless, if this company happens to be as real as it claims to be, it will beat APMA to the market, and strongly prove to skeptical Canadians that the seemingly impossible can be done.
Vehicles New To Canada For 2021
The highly anticipated Rivian and Lucid did not make it for the 2021 year in Canada. That did not stop the legacy automakers from delivering the following battery electric options:
A very small list for new entries this year, due to numerous complications like the semiconductor chip shortage, and other production and shipping complications.
Tesla Announces Markham Battery Equipment Plant
On November 04, 2021, the mayor of Markham annnounced via Twitter that Tesla Canada will be opening its first Tesla branded manufacturing facility in Canada. The plant will produce manufacturing equipment used to make 4680 batteries.
2021 Summary
Due to the chip shortage, 2021 has brought extremely few new additions to Canada. New models, however, are not the highlight of the 2021 year. The biggest attention-grabbing matter would have to be the proposed Build Back Better Act, and what Canada will do in response to it. AK Motor has unveiled the Majestic Maple earlier this year, and even mailed Pime Minister Trudeau about the real problem with Canada’s automotive industry. Will Trudeau respond? Will Biden really not consider any of Canada’s or Mexico’s concerns? 2022 shall hopefully bring forth interesting answers to these questions.
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