• CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 day ago

    Volpe said Scholz’s first question was when the car was going to go into mass production. “We are building a fleet,” was the response.

    That’s huge. He called it just a “business card” for the industry a bit ago.

    It’s not production, but it’s closer.

  • merc@sh.itjust.works
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    24 hours ago

    I wonder if this concept car contains anything Canada-specific in its design. For example, Canadian winters are bad for batteries, have they done anything to compensate for that? Extra clearance for getting over snowbanks when you’re plowed in?

    If there’s nothing unique about it, it will be hard to compete not just with Tesla, but also with Rivian, BYD, and all the traditional car companies with electric models.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      17 minutes ago

      In the walkthrough I posted, it was mentioned that they have some kind of graphene integration in the battery, and that the no-mirrors highly aerodynamic shape also helps. In testing since then it’s been shown to have a range of 500km.

      I can’t remember if I’ve seen anything to do with severe weather directly mentioned.

    • Cows Look Like Maps@lemmy.ca
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      19 hours ago

      Tesla has created a vacuum since nobody wants to buy their swastikars outside of the USA, and there’s international support to buy Canadian. We have the steel, aluminum, and minerals for batteries domestically. I could see it working.

    • Warehouse@lemmy.ca
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      23 hours ago

      TBF the fact that it would be Canadian would set it apart from other electric vehicles. And other vehicles in general, really.

    • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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      22 hours ago

      LiFePo battery chemistry is go to for affordable EV battery packs that also do a bit better than performance battery chemistry in cold. A tech innovation with commercial production in China is Sodium Ion batteries. These perform best in cold, heaviest, but long term lowest cost material/scarcity equation.