Toronto, Ontario — In today’s EV/AV report, Tesla’s CEO dodges questioning in a trial regarding a dead Apple Inc. software engineer, General Motors announces upcoming changes for its St. Catharines plant and the government of Manitoba pledges to build more EV chargers across the province. This is the latest in electric and autonomous vehicles.
Invoking the fifth
A Santa Clara County superior court judge has granted Tesla’s request to shield Elon Musk from questioning at a hearing regarding an Apple software engineer who crashed and died while driving his Autopilot enabled Tesla vehicle in 2018, according to an article first published by Bloomberg.
According to the prosecution’s lawyer, Doris Cheng, ”there’s no way of knowing whether there was data backing public statements made by Tesla and Musk about Autopilot’s capabilities unless the billionaire entrepreneur is deposed.”
Tesla’s attorney, Tom Branigan, argued that the engineers were more familiar with the design of autopilot, and were therefore more relevant for questioning.
Other plaintiffs suing Tesla regarding autopilot crashes have yet to feature testimony from Musk, at the time of publishing.
Augmented Assembly
General Motors will begin manufacturing EV drive units at its St. Catharines propulsion plant, allocating approximately 500 jobs to produce more than 400,000 units for the Ultium EV annually, by 2025.
According to press release by General Motors Canada, this proposed investment builds on other General Motors’ projects to establish an EV manufacturing network, including building an EV plant in Ingersoll, Ont., expanding the GM Canadian Technology Centre and returning to three shifts of pickup production at the OEM’s Ottawa assembly plant.
GM Canada is engaging with the provincial and federal governments and expects to complete discussions later this year.
Greener Pastures
The government of Manitoba is providing $150,000 to Eco-West Canada, who has been tasked with installing more EV chargers across the province as the country strives to achieve EV only sales by 2035.
According to a press release from Thursday, the project will partner with six municipalities to support the procurement and installation of seven new Level 3 chargers.
“Transitioning to electric vehicles and increasing access to transit will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support a low-carbon economy and ensure affordability for Manitobans,” said Kevin Klein, provincial minister for environment and climate.
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