Join us for Season 3 of Driving into the Future
We kick off our third season of Driving into the Future with a 'Virtual Auto Show' that will highlight the top trends and vehicles for 2023
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Welcome to the latest Postmedia Driving into the Future series of panels. In this third season, Driving’s senior writer David Booth and senior editor Andrew McCredie, host of Driving’s Plugged-In podcast, will lead industry experts through some of the toughest and most impactful questions of the burgeoning clean-energy era.
New cars and the automotive industry in 2023
Fresh from the Los Angeles Auto Show, Driving into the Future will look at everything that is new in the automotive world for 2023. From an all-new Prius, the car that started the electric revolution; to the new lower-cost Lucid Air Pure EV, we’ll highlight all that is new in cars.
But there is so much more going on than new metal. Will there be new jobs in Canada’s struggling auto manufacturing sector? We’ll discuss affordability, and whether cars and driving will continue their recent spike in prices. What about autonomous driving? Is it really the future? And, of course, we’ll talk about safety, because those near and dear are still our highest priorities. More than just a new-car preview, join us on November 23 at 11:00 AM EST as we discuss all your most pressing car concerns.
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Can Canada become an EV super-power?
Canada has bountiful resources. We are also blessed with highly-qualified autoworkers, (relatively) clean electricity, and an infrastructure that’s long proven capable of producing the highest tech automobiles. We also have, in the guise of Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, the smartest member of the Liberal cabinet pushing an innovative mines-to-mobility program designed to bring jobs to Canada.
But can it survive American protectionism? The American Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit is giving away hundreds of billions of dollars to automakers building battery plants specifically in the U.S. Can we hitch a ride on the EV revolution? Or is the Canadian automotive industry in for a rude awakening? Stay tuned at 11:00 AM EST on November 30 for the answers.
Will switching to an EV really save you money?
Experts have long predicted that rising gas prices — just like we’ve seen over the last 12 months — would spur the electric-vehicle revolution. Except that supply-chain shortages and a shortage of raw materials have seen a dramatic increase in the price of a new electric vehicle, the average transaction price of an EV well over $20,000 more than its fossil-fueled equivalent. Meanwhile, one branch of environmentalism — those concerned with fern and fauna — are battling with climate activists over the relative importance of saving spotted owls or mining lithium, all while other countries like the Philippines and Indonesia are benefiting from our Not-In-My-Back-Yard-ism by strip-mining rain forests to mine for battery minerals.
These and other conflicting forces and information make it very confusing for automotive experts and consumers alike to determine how quickly and affordably the auto industry can roll out EVs. Driving into the Future will wade through these divergent trends and market forces to bring you concrete answers to your automotive future. Driving Into the Future tackles these and other difficult questions on December 7 at 11:00 AM EST.
Is charging infrastructure the last road block to EV domination?
Grids won’t be able to provide enough electricity for overnight home charging. There aren’t enough public charging stations for the EVs planned for the future. Hell, experts can’t even agree on how many chargers we’ll need in the future, other than that it will be a lot. Worse yet, EV charging infrastructure is notoriously unreliable.
That’s why this panel will answer questions big (is there enough electricity?) and small (why do 150-kW charging stations sometimes only pump out 42 kilowatts?). We’ll try to figure out how many chargers Canada needs to move forward, and what a realistic assessment of our grids might look like. We’ll be trying to inform everyone from consumers about their personal electricity needs; to industry experts looking to understand what the next ten years of building an EV-sustaining infrastructure might look like. Without a supporting infrastructure, the EV revolution will be paralyzed, so we need to get this right. For all the answers, join us virtually on December 14 at 11:00 AM EST.
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