BURWELL BOOST
Burwell Autobody in London, Ontario, made history as the first collision repair centre in North America to secure approval from VinFast into its certified collision repair network. The shop’s parent company, AutoCanada, announced the news via LinkedIn last week, noting the significant accomplishment of Burwell Autobody becoming the first repair centre in North America to be approved to repair vehicles from the burgeoning Vietnam-founded, Singapore-based EV brand.
HYDRO AND GO
Natural Resources Canada is keeping its options open when it comes to emissions-free fuel sources, announcing plans to install a hydrogen refueling station off the Trans-Canada Highway in Kelowna, B.C. This plan will see $1 million allocated to Vancouver-based hydrogen mobility developer HTEC through NRCan’s Electric Vehicle and Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Deployment.
DATA WITH CADA
Representatives from several automotive lobby groups were on Parliament Hill in mid-June, where they hosted a press conference voicing their concerns with the federal government’s handling of the zero-emission vehicle plan. President and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association (CVMA) Brian Kingston says the timeline shows that “Canada is not on track to support the necessary charging infrastructure to support widespread ZEV adoption. As of 2024, there were 124,000 EVs registered in Canada, according to Kingston. “That figure needs to grow to 400,000 in 2026, 1.2 million in 2030 and two million by 2035. With those growth rates, we will have 12.4 million zero-emission vehicles on Canada’s roads in the next 12 years. This simply cannot be achieved without a massive rollout of charging infrastructure,” said Kingston.
EV APATHY
Electric vehicles remain very much out of the question for about twothirds of Canadian drivers as many concerns and misconceptions around the technology linger, according to a recent J.D. Power survey. Citing a lack of confidence in the performance of EVs in Canada, combined with a similar dissatisfaction with the nation’s existing charging infrastructure, J.D. Power found that the percentage of drivers who would consider an EV purchase has slipped by 17 percent, totalling only about 34 percent of Canadian drivers.
