News Roundup: Canada’s tiny new EV, a two-million-dollar Hemi ‘Cuda, and more
Including Trudeau’s statement on the VW battery plant deal
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Welcome to our round-up of the biggest breaking stories on Driving.ca from this past week. Get caught up and ready to get on with the weekend, because it’s hard keeping pace in a digital traffic jam.
Here’s what you missed while you were away.
Is this micro car the future of personal transport?
If you haven’t noticed, the real electric vehicle revolution isn’t taking place on the roads, but in the bike lanes. E-bikes, scooters, one-wheels, and more, have been multiplying in city centres, and now there’s another closed-cabin option.
The Safe Affordable Reliable Innovative Transport, or SARIT for short, comes from the mind of auto parts supplier magnate Frank Stronach, who says he had the idea while stuck in traffic. And indeed the SARIT should avoid gridlock on roads as it’s not technically a car, but a low-speed, low-cost, three-wheeled e-bike with a three-speed drive, seats for two, and a top speed of 60 km/h.
Driving’s Jil McIntosh took one of the SARIT prototypes out for a cruise and quickly got over her trepidation and was whipping the “zippy” little unit around at its top speed. She did, however, notice a fair amount of noise in the small cabin, something the brand says it hopes to work out in the final phases of development. The SARIT is scheduled to head to production this summer.
Trudeau says Volkswagen got a special deal
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced late April that EV parts makers in Canada should not expect the same treatment from the government that Volkswagen is getting. The German automaker received word it would get some $13 billion (US$9.6 billion) over 10 years to build EV battery production facilities in Ontario. But there’s not enough cash to go around to all those in the business.
“We are prepared to step up and make sure that we’re competitive” with U.S. manufacturing subsidies, Trudeau said April 28 during an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “But we’re going to look at each one on a case-by-case basis. We will think strategically about this” and not just say yes to any company, he said. Canada’s finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, echoed the statement, saying democracies must avoid a “race to the bottom” on corporate subsidies or risk harming the tax base.
Read more here.
GR Supra owner says a teacher rented his car and raced it with students
You’re not supposed to be able to rent race cars on Turo. That’s not what the car-sharing app is for. It’s more about transport than sport.
But the clearly stated rules didn’t limit one Illinois high school teacher’s need for speed. According to a Fox News report, Giovanni Morales saw his 2021 Toyota GR Supra get rented off of Turo for a three-day period by one Gregory Ditch. After feeling something was off, Morales checked up on the individual online and came across social media posts showing his car being used by a high school automotive class — on a track at a Texas speed event. One of the images clearly shows the car’s licence plate while another shows a speed reading of 160 mph (257 km/h).
“There was never any talk about, Hey, I’m going to this big event at this race track with my high school students and I’m planning to put this car on the track,” Morales told Fox New last month, adding that the car was returned with around US$4,000 in damages, including worn tires and brakes. “That would have absolutely not been okay with me.”
The teacher, meanwhile, appeared in an interview with Fox News and completely denies any wrongdoing, saying he borrowed the Toyota from another unnamed dealer.
This historic 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda is for sale for over US$2 million
History is getting more expensive every day. Take this 1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda for example, which allegedly rolled off the line in 1969 as the first ever 1970-model-year ‘Cuda to bear a 426-cubic-inch Hemi V8, and just the third Barracuda ever built. It’s up for sale some 50 years after and it’s making for an astounding asking price of US$2.2 million.
The lucky number three car has 17,755 miles (28,573 km) on the odo and, as reported by Muscle Cars & Trucks, is listed for sale by Motorvault in Indiana. It has been repainted its original colour and doesn’t boast many of the super-pricy features Mopar classics often do (such as flashy colours or long accessories lists), but it does have a cool overhead console and Premium trim package, and strangely, no tachometer.
But will the pre-production unicorn fetch its astronomical asking price? Other Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles have broken the US$2-million mark, but this one hasn’t been purchased yet.
J.D. Power study suggests growing number of people not onboard with EVs
We’ve all heard the goals stated by automakers: ICE-less by 2030, full EV options by 2025, and so on. But does the public’s sentiment match that of the makers? Not so much, according to a new J.D. Power study.
The survey looked at U.S. customers and found that the percentage of respondents who self-identify as “very unlikely” to consider an EV as their next vehicle purchase has been on the rise. In January, some 17.8 per cent of respondents fell into the reluctant category, but the number grew to 18.9 per cent in February and up to 21 per cent in March. Meanwhile, the chunk of inversely pro-EV survey takers held steady at around the 26.9 per cent.
The two main factors holding this growing group back appear to be the lack of public charging infrastructure and the elevated price of EVs. Canadian owners were not surveyed, but another study found that Canadians who bought EVs were likely to purchase another.
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