Mississauga, Ontario — On Wednesday, Ontario’s premier delivered a speech to automotive industry leaders who had gathered in Mississauga for the first day of the Automotive Aftermarket Retailers of Ontario’s symposium and trade show.
EV Day, the first day of the event, which is being held from Sept. 17-21, began with a keynote delivered by James Carter of Vision Mobility (pictured), who previously spent two decades working in senior positions at Toyota in Japan, Canada and Australia.
His speech focused on the reasons EV adoption has slowed in recent years. “When [COVID-19] shut down the world, governments pumped tonnes of money into the economy and EV investing became the flavour-of-the-month [for institutional investors]… This was a bubble that burst. EV shares tanked.”
Carter added that this bubble had been worsened because of widespread optimism about the rate at which EVs would be adopted by consumers. Despite this, he added that the EV sector would recover in the long term, noting that only about one percent of EV drivers ever switch back to fully fossil fuel vehicles.
“OEMs planned for 100 percent [EV sales] increases each year,” he said. “They only expanded by 30 percent… We are in a correction.”
Carter was followed by a panel on whether aftermarket technicians were prepared for the transition away from fossil fuels featuring Scott Eccles of Eccles Automotive, Diltaj Sekhon of R & S Auto and Andrew Ackers of Upper James Autopro.
Other sessions tackled charging infrastructure, training for technicians and industry forecasts. Travis Allan of Stella’s LLP moderated a panel on building the backbone of EV adoption, joined by Mike Frisina of Swtch Energy, Graham Borden of Soneil Spark and Dave Jarmon of PowerON Energy Solutions.
Cara Clairman of Plug’n Drive drew a strong turnout with her “Myth Busters” talk, paired with hands-on EV test drives. A technician skills panel featured Mark Lemay of Auto Aide, Billy Theriault of Bumper to Bumper, David Giles of Carquest and Yves Racette of NAPA.
The closing discussion, “Shift Happens: Industry Leaders Forecast the EV Future,” included Ackers, Darryl Coish of OK Tire/Electric Vehicle Network and Daniel Breton of Electric Mobility.
The first day also concluded with a speech from Doug Ford mostly focused on need to reduce government expenditure in Ontario and ways to improve the fortunes of Canada’s automotive manufacturing sector.
“The auto sector has been on the front line of trade and trade disruptions… We have to lower income tax. We have to get more money back in people’s pockets,” Ford said, arguing that Ontarians would be more likely to buy vehicles if they had more disposable income.”
