At a St. Thomas parking zone, Brad Toner proudly exhibits off what’s below the hood of his Mustang GT.
“My dad had one and my mom has one,” he defined.
He’s a younger driver with old style tastes.
“It’s just what I was raised to get,” mentioned Toner.
He doesn’t assume he’s alone in his reluctance to embracing newer, greener electrical car expertise.
“I don’t think Canada’s really ready for the way we’re targeting EV sales around here. You know, there’s not the infrastructure. There’s only really a couple of big charging stations around here and people don’t really want to wait for their cars to charge to go somewhere,” he mentioned.
Brad Toner is pictured together with his Mustang GT on July 29, 2024. (Bryan Bicknell/ Ontario Chronicle London)
The truth is, the highway to EVs has not been as easy as some anticipated. EV battery part producer Umicore has put the brakes on building of its new plant in jap Ontario.
This, as building at St. Thomas’ Volkswagen battery plant exhibits no indicators of slowing down.
The top of the Automotive Elements Manufacturing affiliation of Canada doesn’t count on that to alter any time quickly.
“So as long as Volkswagen group is committed to 2027, 2028, 2029 to building those vehicles, it needs those batteries,” defined Flavio Volpe. “And it is committed. I had a chance to tour the sister plant in Germany about a month ago to see just how far that planning goes, and just how excited they are about St. Thomas.”
Canada is pouring billions of {dollars} into turning into an EV provide chain chief, simply as world gross sales of EVs gradual considerably, and manufacturing drops. At the least one trade knowledgeable believes the slowdown in EV gross sales has to do partly with the federal government’s zero emissions car gross sales mandates kicking as much as 100 per cent by 2035.
“And people who have never been in an EV, have never driven an EV are saying I’ll never drive an EV,” mentioned Brendan Sweeney of the Trillium Community for Superior Manufacturing. “Okay, is that because the car doesn’t perform as well as you like. No. It’s just become a bit of a statement. If you’re telling me to do something, even if I got 12 years to prepare for it, then I never want it.”
As for Toner, he is aware of he’ll have to alter course at some point down the highway, however that doesn’t imply he has to love it.
“If that day comes and I am forced to not drive it any more then I’ll probably have to,” he conceded.
