Host: >> EV sales are surging in the first quarter of 2026. More than half a million new electric cars were registered in Europe. That's up 33% from last year. And leading the pack is Norway. More than 2000 electric vehicles were sold there in January, along with just seven gas powered cars. That's correct. Seven. I can count that on two hands. So what about Ontario? Are we ready for an electric future and do we have the infrastructure to support it? Then someone who's not thrilled about more Chinese EVs coming into the province. Premier Doug Ford.

Host: >> Is he right to be concerned? We look at the security threats you could face when you get behind the wheel. Welcome to The Rundown. Norway calls itself the electric vehicle capital of the world. And it didn't get there by accident. It offers incentives and has installed more than 9000 fast chargers across the country. Should this province be doing more, we find out how easy it is to buy and drive an EV in Ontario, and what will happen when more Chinese cars hit the market. Cara Clairman is president and CEO of the non-profit Plug'n Drive. Lindsay Wiginton is the co-lead of Clean Mobility practice at Dunsky Energy and Climate Advisors. Great to have you both in our studio. How are you guys doing?

Cara Clairman: >> Doing great. Thank you.

Lindsay Wiginton: >> Glad to be here.

Host: >> All right. To kick off our conversation, I want to pull up a chart showing the sales roller coaster that zero emission vehicles have taken in Canada recently. So you can see that sales in some months of 2024 were almost 20% of new cars, but they fell off late in the year after rebates disappeared and amid a weaker economy. But by the end of 2025, a little hope there. EVs accounted for roughly 12.5% of new vehicle sales across Canada.

Host: >> All right, so if EV sales continue to rebound in Canada, which cars will have the biggest demand? Is it the ones that are being made in China or are they the ones being made in the West? Kara.

Cara Clairman: >> Well, I think it will be the ones made in the West. People have more familiarity. There's still some fear around the Chinese EVs, although they will they will sell. And once people become more familiar. So I think in future years we'll see more uptake. But probably in the first year or so a little less so.

Host: >> And when we're talking about cars in the West, what type of brands are we? Are we.

Cara Clairman: >> Thinking, I mean, all the brands are here. I mean, right now the most popular brands tend to be GM vehicles. Hyundai, Kia, Toyota is coming up there. Yeah. We're seeing we're seeing all the brands.

Host: >> All right. Lindsay, how about you? Now we should mention that the Chinese EVs don't qualify for the federal rebates. That may have something to do with that as well. But in terms of a price point, there are estimates that they come quite lower. So where do we where do we think we're going? Are we going Chinese EVs? Are we going vehicles made in the West?

Lindsay Wiginton: >> Maybe I'll answer leaning on some of the numbers. So in 2024, when we were at that 15% level of sales across the country, there were about 200,000 EVs sold in that year. And about a quarter of those was the 49,000 EVs from China that we were receiving then before those tariffs were applied. So my guess would be that that proportion would look about the same in the coming years.

Host: >> All right. I'm curious about conversations that I'm having with some of my friends and family about which direction does one go. EVs are usually more expensive than regular vehicles, but that will start to change as we see. Carol, what kinds of questions do potential buyers ask when trying to figure out not just the initial cost, but the lifeline. Right cost?

Cara Clairman: >> Well, that's exactly what I was going to say. When you say they cost more, yes, the sticker price is more, but the total cost of ownership is much, much less. And so a lot of the questions we answer is to try to help show people that they'll actually save money driving these cars with or without a rebate. The rebates definitely help, but to be honest, the the business case is there because over time you're going to save. And especially with the high gas prices right now, I mean, if you're paying $2 a litre, I'm paying about $0.27. And that's a huge difference.

Host: >> Give me an example of a vehicle. When we're looking at an EV, gas and gas is one thing not having to pay for that. But how about maintenance and stuff like that for an electric vehicle?

Cara Clairman: >> Well, maintenance on average is less because an EV has very few moving parts. A gas car has somewhere in the order of 1800 to 2000 moving parts. An EV has many orders of magnitude less, like 20 to 30 moving parts. And so you can just imagine fewer moving parts means less things to break. And a lot of systems just not there. And so your maintenance tends to be much, much lower. And so the overall total cost of ownership is much lower in EV. And in fact, the difference you're going to pay, which is right now around 5000 bucks, if you take into account the rebate, you'll make that back in about two years of driving.

Host: >> Oh, wow. Okay, Lindsay, I'm hoping you can connect the dots between the province, a province, because some don't have it, a zero emission mandate versus how accessible EVs are to potential buyers.

Lindsay Wiginton: >> Sure. Yeah. So the policy that's called a zero emission vehicle mandate is basically a regulation that either the federal government or provincial government can pass that says automakers need to sell a certain proportion of electric vehicles in each year, and they set a target. And typically that target increases over time. And so up until sort of mid last year, we did have one of those in place federally that was paused and recently replaced with a slightly different kind of regulation. But the provinces of B.C. and Quebec have had those Zev mandates in place for several years now. And so because those automakers are required to sell a certain portion of EVs or else they'll pay a penalty, that's where the supply goes. And so consumers in B.C. and Quebec have had a lot more choice over the last 5 or 6 years. And it's not that you have to buy a gas car in those places, but you have a lot more choice if you're going to look at for sure, fully plug in or plug in hybrid options. Ontario has been kind of middle of the pack in terms of supply. You know, we have the advantage of being a big market with a decent amount of purchasing power. So maybe we haven't seen the shortages that some Atlantic provinces have had, but certainly not having that rebate locally has meant less choice for consumers overall.

Host: >> I imagine waiting longer as well.

Lindsay Wiginton: >> Definitely.

Host: >> What does that mean? Are we waiting? Is it weeks, months, years?

Lindsay Wiginton: >> It really fluctuates. We my firm has been involved in doing some surveys where we, you know, we call dealerships and we say, I want to buy this kind of car. How long do I have to wait? And we see those numbers kind of jumping up and down. I mean, I hear stories about people waiting on the order of something more like a year or more. You probably hear those stories.

Cara Clairman: >> Especially during Covid. I mean, the waiting list was for any car was really long. I find it's really brand variable. And so a lot of times when people want to choose an EV, they have to be a little bit flexible because. And so they tend to look at a few different brands. They're not as brand loyal as people typically are with gas cars.

Host: >> I imagine not just brands as well, but even colours and things.

Cara Clairman: >> Like you.

Have to. Have to accept, accept what you can get.

Host: >> Okay, noted. Let's talk about infrastructure here in Ontario. What does the charging network look like, whether it's on the road or in your homes?

Cara Clairman: >> All right. So so the important thing to remember is if you live in a single family home or a townhouse, really simple to get a charger at home. And that's the way most people prefer to do it. And of course, early adopters, they tended to have more resources. So they tended to be folks who lived in single family homes. And that was like 80% of EV buyers were homeowners. So they just got a plug at home. And so the public infrastructure was less important. Now that we're moving more into the mainstream, there's more and more people who will be relying on the public charging, who might live somewhere where they can't get a charger, a condo or an apartment. I would say as like a very early adopter that the infrastructure is actually quite good. I know that, you know, the news is that it's not that good for those of us who've been driving a long time, it's so much better than it used to be.

Host: >> Is that because you know where to go now?

Cara Clairman: >> Yes. And also, there's great apps available to see where they are. And so if you live in urban suburban Canada, the infrastructure is actually quite good. Like more than 40,000 chargers across the country. A lot of those are fast chargers. Where it gets dicey is if you're driving rural, remote, remote. And of course, a lot of us are never doing that. But for the folks that are, that's a challenge. And then of course, the multi unit challenge.

Host: >> All right. Lindsay.

Lindsay Wiginton: >> Well, maybe I'll jump on that segue with the multi-unit challenge. So I think one of the biggest gaps, like Ontario has a public funding program for public charging in general, it's called charge on. There was a second tranche of funding released recently. So that's helping to build out some of that, you know, on the go charging infrastructure. But in a place like Toronto, more than half of people live in a multi-family building. So we definitely need to think about how those folks will have options for charging at home for existing buildings you can retrofit, and that will often take some form of public support to be able to do that. But for new buildings, it's actually quite straightforward to put in place a regulation that says, just add the wiring in the same way that we add wiring for a stove. And nowadays for dryers and washers, nobody questions that. But we are still in many municipalities in Ontario building new condos that don't have wiring to the parking spots. It can be really cost effective to do like something like $1,500 a parking spot, and that person then will have the option to easily install a charger and save 1600, 2000 a month going forward. When they do switch to an EV.

Cara Clairman: >> And we call that roughing in, you know, they just need to rough it in. And it's cheapest, of course, to do it when the building is being built. And a retrofit can be very expensive because then you're drilling through cement and floors and walls. It's not the chargers that are expensive. It's the civil work that really gets expensive.

Host: >> All right, Lindsay, how would you rate Ontario's support for zero emission vehicles compared to other provinces? Touch on a little bit. We can obviously look at Quebec and BC, but where do we stand here?

Lindsay Wiginton: >> I'd put us squarely in the middle of the pack, and that's where we published a scorecard a few years ago. That's sort of where Ontario landed. So some of the strengths working in our favour are we have some options around electricity rates that are really helpful for both charging operators and EV users and fleets. We do have the investment in public charging that I mentioned, some things we don't have. So we don't have an additional provincial rebate like those other two provinces have. And we yeah, do not yet have across the board rules that would require those ruffians that Kerry's speaking about. And in fact, some municipalities have gone so far as to adopt that into their own bylaws. And there's some questions right now about whether the provincial government is going to let that stand in the ways that they're hoping to sort of manage the development system. So that's a big concern, because if people can't charge, they're not going to purchase an EV.

Host: >> What would you like.

Lindsay Wiginton: >> To see the requirement to rough in for ten years at least. And so all multi-unit buildings that have been built in the last ten years, they're all EV ready, rough and ready. And I mean, to me, if you're going to build a building that's going to be around hopefully for 50 years or more, it just seems nonsensical not to rough in for what we know is coming.

Host: >> Okay, Lindsay, you mentioned fleet. So I am curious because we are focusing right now on consumer sales, but what can you tell us about fleet sales of electric vehicles, our municipalities and businesses buying them up?

Lindsay Wiginton: >> They are. And, you know, we've been speaking about what's called light duty vehicles most of this time. So that's like cars, SUVs and light trucks. So there are fleets that use those kinds of light duty vehicles. And there are also fleets that use heavy duty vehicles like trucks and speciality things like bucket trucks. Across the board. We see a lot of adoption of EVs. So my firm supports a number of municipalities, utility fleets, and also corporate fleets who have made that choice. And, you know, as Cara highlighted, we're talking fuel costs, orders of magnitude smaller and maintenance costs about half of what a gas fleet costs. And so the challenge there is just making sure that there's a model on the market that matches the duty cycle and the use case of those commercial vehicles. And that's something that we help fleets do that matching exercise and anticipate when those other models are going to be available.

Host: >> All right. I want to talk about something that amongst my friends we didn't talk about, but once I started doing research, I was like, right, we're talking about cars. There's a whole other market of vehicles, not just brand new coming out of dealerships. There's used market. How big is this market of used EVs?

Cara Clairman: >> It's huge. The used market is a very good market. And I think the problem that we have is we talked about this, that because EVs are new, people don't think of them as being available. But we have 15 years now under our belts of EVs being made in a sort of commercial production. And so many, many makes and models available at all price points. And in fact, I think the biggest concern that we hear, as you know, a group that helps people choose an EV is battery life, correct? Because they think, oh, if it's used, I don't know the state of battery, but there's a test that you can do on the battery and that could give you a lot of comfort. Plus most of those vehicles, the battery has a warranty of eight years or more. And so if you're really concerned, you can buy it so that the warranty is still in place. And so for a few years of ownership, you know, your battery is under warranty just to give you that confidence that you can choose a used EV.

Host: >> Okay. Lindsay.

Lindsay Wiginton: >> Yeah. I mean, just over the last three years in Canada, there's been about 600,000 new EVs sold. So all of those become used EVs at some point. And now with the return of the federal rebate. So for a new EV, you can get up to $5,000. There's going to be more uptake. And those are going to move into the used market as well. My family actually just earlier this year made a purchase on the used market, and we had a lot of options and we were able to get something that was much more affordable than buying new. I think that's where organisations like Cara's are super important. You know, I had friends I could text who know stuff about EVs to make sure I was making a good decision. But not everyone has that. And there are things that are a little bit scary and that, you know, dealerships are not always equipped to answer. And so that's where the kind of education side comes in.

Cara Clairman: >> As well. Well, thanks. Yeah. I mean.

We're there just to answer your questions to help you with test drives to, to help get you over the hump, you know, if you're concerned and it's free and, you know, we're non-biased in terms of brand, we support all the brands and we're not trying to sell you anything. So it's a great way to learn.

Host: >> Well, we'll be in touch then. That's what I'm going to say. Very exciting time for EVs in this province. Lindsay, I want to thank you so much for all of your insight on this. Great.

Lindsay Wiginton: >> Thanks for having us.

Host: >> Premier Doug Ford has called Chinese electric vehicles spy vehicles.

Doug Ford: >> You know, when you get on your cell phone, it's the Chinese that are going to be listening to you. And I'm not making this stuff up. They're going to be listening to your telephone conversation.

Host: >> So what should and shouldn't you be worried about when you're in the driver's seat? David Shipley is the CEO and co-founder of Beauceron Security, and he joins us from Fredericton, New Brunswick. Hello, David. How are you today?

David Shipley: >> I'm well, thank you.

Host: >> All right. Well, let's talk about Chinese EVs. Do they present more of a security threat than EVs that are being built here in the West, or even, let's say, internet connected vehicles?

David Shipley: >> Our focus on this discussion with Chinese EVs really centres around the potential hostility of the Chinese state towards us. But the mistake that legislators and public policy makers are making here is assuming that that hostility could only manifest itself through attacks via Chinese vehicles, which is a huge mistake. And it's about all of these internet connected vehicles, not just Chinese EVs, but cars with traditional gas or diesel engines that also have 24 over seven internet connections and are now more rolling computers than they are cars.

Host: >> Well, let's talk about it. Obviously, Chinese EVs, there are some legitimate concerns, as you mentioned, when we talk about the Chinese government. But what is the bigger picture when it comes to these internet connected vehicles compared to whether or not they're electric or not, or whether or not they're built in China or not?

David Shipley: >> So we have known for almost 11 years that there are massive safety as well as privacy issues with cars made by a variety of manufacturers. In 2015, we saw wired magazine show a video of hackers over the internet taking control of a Jeep Cherokee while the reporter drove the vehicle and they were able to mess with the vehicle's entertainment centre, turn the wipers on, blast the A C, and they turned the transmission into a park mode while driving on the highway. And if you watch this video, you can hear Andy Greenberg's panic start in his voice in a parking lot. They demonstrated how they could remotely disable the brakes and take control of the steering. That was a decade ago. Last year, researchers showed a 2020 Nissan Leaf could be hacked via a Bluetooth connection, establishing the ability to remote back in again over the internet via a cellular modem, and again could take physical control of the vehicle. And it took Nissan 18 months to fix it. That Jeep Cherokee bug, by the way, affected more than just Jeep Cherokees. It affected a whole range of Stellantis vehicles. There were about a million cars that had to get a recall to prevent being hacked over the internet.

Host: >> I don't know many people in my life right now who are driving a 1996 Honda Civic, you know, with crank windows, everyone seems to be connected. Can we get a better sense of how many vehicles are actually connected to the internet?

David Shipley: >> According to my research, about 47% of all cars on Canadian roads today are connected to the internet 24 over seven, and you can tell if your car has an app that enables you to remote start, unlock the doors, get vehicle diagnostics. That car is connected to the internet. I had a 2015 Chevrolet Sonic, and it had this 4G cellular connectivity baked into it, and GM was gathering tons of data. So this isn't just about Tesla's, you know, cars that almost go back a decade have been doing this. 90% of new cars sold in Canada today have this 24 over seven internet connection. And there are a variety of business reasons legitimate and some not so legitimate from an end customer perspective, why they're pushing internet connectivity down our throats.

Host: >> Question is that something you can turn off on the consumer end? If I was concerned, and at the end of the day, we don't want to be alarmist here, but is that something that if I am concerned about, can I turn it off?

David Shipley: >> No. There is no easy way for people to turn off. And that's the fundamental first point I've made to legislators is that it is not technologically complex to build in the capacity via hardware, not via software, because you can't trust software. Software can lie to you and say, no, no, it's turned off and it's not. So either be a physical switch or a fuse dedicated in the car's fuse box that an owner could easily identify to pull the plug. And there are lots of legitimate reasons why you'd want to do that. First, let's imagine there's a widespread vulnerability. Let's take an example of Canada's own success story, QNX, which is made by BlackBerry and is the operating system for more than 230 million cars. If it has a critical vulnerability and it's going to take some time to safely patch it and get that recall done, we may want to be in a position where we could put out public news and say, if you own one of the following model cars, here's what you do so you can still drive your car safely. And we don't have that capability. In fact, thanks to US legislation mandating remote kill switches over the internet into car manufacturers, we're actually heading in the exact opposite policy direction where people don't have the control to do this. And the legislators intents here are admirable from certain public policy standpoints. So if people haven't paid fines or they're remiss in, say, child support payments, maybe they can have their car disabled as some kind of a public policy lever. Which sounds cool. Until GM gets hacked by China and 7 million cars don't start that day. And if we're thinking this sounds science fictiony.

Host: >> It does.

David Shipley: >> A a car security manufacturer in Russia called Delta, which made a security system that could remotely disable the engine, was hacked by an unknown group. We can probably draw conclusions as to who did it, and cars were not starting and cars that were driving were drivers reported the engine stopping. So it's already happened.

Host: >> From what I gather, you are less worried about espionage and more worried about bad actors, and that can come in a variety of ways. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

David Shipley: >> Well, so when it comes to physical safety, this is where you people can be killed. You know, when we saw that Julia Roberts Marchand, a fantastic dystopian cyber attack movie, what we leave behind and all these Teslas slamming into each other, driving themselves, blocking all the exits on an off ramp. I would very much like to leave that in the realm of dramatic science fiction, we are pushing the pedal down to make it real, and that seems like a stupid, dumb idea. And not only that, police forces across this country do not have the capability to do forensic analysis. And even nationally, we don't have the capacity in a lab to do forensic analysis. So we are going to have people killed by intimate partners or others, by injecting software bugs into their cars. It's it's possible. It's plausible there's motive, and we wouldn't have the ability to even know what's happening. So if we can reasonably foresee these disasters, why are we doing it? And, you know, if you're if you're listening to this and saying, well, why wouldn't the car manufacturers care about this? Because they care more about other things. And I'll talk about those in a minute. And those touch more on the privacy and consumer rights stuff. But car manufacturers, over their entire modern history have consistently shown us they will prioritise profits over safety. Remember, these are the folks that brought us the side mounted gas tank on pickup trucks that decided that making certain changes to engineering designs for low incremental cost weren't worth it to them, even though they could reasonably anticipate up to a thousand deaths per year. So this industry has shown us that they can't self-regulate in the past. They have that zebra has not changed its stripes. So we do need reasonable government regulation. And it's because the business drivers behind this data are so powerful.

Host: >> We're talking about power. I do have to ask, you know, what role does artificial intelligence play into this? When we're talking about sort of you give that example of the cheap jerky. You know, that was quite a while, a while ago. How quickly can people do some of the things that you're saying?

David Shipley: >> So so the two researchers behind the Jeep Cherokee hack, Chris Valasek, and I apologise. I can't remember the other gentleman's name. These were experienced, well educated, professional hackers. Ethical hackers who. Charlie Miller, sorry, it was Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek knew exactly what they were doing. Today we're hearing stories, and we're seeing examples of AI models that have distilled that expertise and could make it available to someone who is far less experienced. And that's where the danger blossoms from. Just being nation states with their elite hacking teams, like China's amazing hacking teams through their Ministry of State Security, to an embittered 17 year old who's been radicalised by groups of misanthropes. That's the people that just hate other humans through groups like seven, six, four online and just want to see if they can kill some innocent people. And that's that's my first point. But legislators honestly, Jeyan, they just they keep going back to the privacy and the espionage and honestly, spying is going to happen. It's the great game and you can be smart about it and say, okay, maybe internet connected vehicles shouldn't be insensitive military or government sites. China did it banned Teslas years ago for good reason. But spying isn't our biggest concern. It's the potential abuse and manipulation of data by corporations and governments in ways that fundamentally harm Canadian rights.

Host: >> With that, does Canada have the security infrastructure and the professional personnel to deal with some of what you have mentioned today.

David Shipley: >> Not even remotely close. You know, I listen to a legislator. I've testified twice in the last two months to parliamentary committees about this issue of internet connected car safety. And I my frustration could not be could not be larger to hear a politician talk about our laughably, pathetically outdated federal privacy laws, like it somehow would deter corporations from abusing this data. Nope. Or that it would somehow deter China's nation state hackers. Are you kidding me? We have a law that has not been fundamentally updated in 20 plus years that got the most minor of updates in 2015 under the under the Harper government, and that fundamentally positions Canadians and Ontarians today with less rights than Europeans and Californians. How is that? How do we tolerate that? And it's because our politicians aren't motivated by these issues. But the abuses are huge. And listen, when Texas is leading the human rights privacy rights charge and we're lagging behind Texas, we should really shake our heads. And it was Texas attorney general that caught several automakers illegally taking people's driving data, selling it without their consent to their insurance companies. And then they noticed their insurance rates got up. I mean, that's one of the risk factors. We talk about this. The other risk factors with these internet connected cars, intimate partner violence. I can tell you, I've had phone calls where I have sadly had to develop a checklist of people fleeing intimate partner violence, where the person they're fleeing is technologically sophisticated. And I remember walking someone through this and they had a Subaru. This was five years ago. And I had to ask them, do you know if your car has this internet connected feature? And they didn't even realise it and it did. And so their physical location was then compromised. So they didn't just have to get rid of their computer and their smartphone. They had to ditch their car.

Host: >> David, we are going to leave it there. This was really, really insightful. Makes me want to get a 1998 Honda Civic or something like that. But some really good information there. I really appreciate your time.

David Shipley: >> You're very welcome.

Host: >> I'm Jeyan. Thanks for watching The Rundown. Would you ever switch to an EV? I want to know. Email us at rundown@TVO.org or leave us a comment. Until then. I will see you tomorrow.