Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 21
21
* FEBRUARY 2017
Being the meat in the sandwich
between Detroit, Toronto shows
The Montreal show once
tried changing dates,
but it lost out to Christmas
shopping in November
BY BENOIT CHARETTE
QUEBEC CORRESPONDENT
Growing charger network
powers airport transit service
E1 Transit will have
18-22 Tesla Model S
sedans in service
in a year
By STEPHANIE WALLCRAFT
TORONTO CORRESPONDENT
AS ELECTRIC-VEHICLE
charging infrastructure expands
across Canada, so does the technology's capability for innovative and
sustainable solutions.
E1 Transit is a Southern Ontariobased transportation company
co-founded by entrepreneurs Han
Yi and Christopher Misch, who is
also co-founder and chief operating
officer of Sun Country Highway, an
EV-charging-station company. While
the two organizations are functionally
independent, E1 Transit uses the Sun
Country Highway infrastructure network to charge its fleet of Tesla Model
S sedans that transport customers to
and from major airports in Toronto
and Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., and
London, Ont., and areas within roughly a two-hour drive of those centres.
Now in operation for six months,
E1 Transit aims to provide a luxurious yet sustainable transportation
alternative for travellers.
"People want to get to the airport
and they don't want to pay for parking,
they don't want to deal with the traffic,
and there's also a lot of cost and time
and headache with some of the scheduled services out there," says Misch,
E1 Transit's chief sustainability officer.
"This is a door-to-door service, but
because there's no gas component,
the cost of service delivery is low.
We're able to offer a luxurious, emission-free, environmental initiative to
people for the same price as it would
be to get on a [bus] from London to
Toronto."
E1 Transit currently has three
vehicles operating daily in the
London area and will expand its
fleet to 12 Model S sedans by spring.
Another six to 10 cars are to be
added over the following 12 months
to expand service into every urban
market in Ontario. The company's
longer-term goal is to serve every
major Canadian airport and its vicinity within three years.
Two aspects make the business
model intriguing, Misch says. One
is the company's ability to make
an average transportation service
a more sustainable and pleasant
undertaking for the customer.
"We really are about creating an
experience that's different," Misch
says, "a place where you have free
Wi-Fi, where you can charge all your
devices. We have snacks and drink
options in the car."
The other key feature of E1
Transit is its ability to extend
mass-transportation services into
rural markets.
"We're opening up transit options
to places that are underserviced,"
Misch says. "This allows us to go into
communities. We're now servicing
Goderich, about an hour and a half
from London. There's no way people
would take a transit option typically
to that airport."
The company is currently exploring other viable urban markets
for expansion, including Calgary,
Greater Vancouver and Montréal,
though Misch points out that securing the appropriate licensing has
been a challenge and the company
won't invest in markets that present
excess hurdles.
"We need to make sure that they
want us, that there's a demand, that
the licensing and legal obligation
isn't a bureaucratic nightmare that
holds us back," he says. "We want to
go where we're asked to come so that
it works well." - ANC
THE MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL
Auto Show sits between the proverbial rock and a hard place, sandwiched
between shows in Detroit. Mich., and
Toronto. Management says the timing
isn't so bad as to cause it to move to
another time slot in the season, however.
Montreal's has been the first
Canadian auto show each year since
1969, landing hard on the heels of the
North American International Auto
Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, and ahead of
the Canadian International AutoShow
in Toronto.
"It's an annual challenge," says show
CEO Luis Perreira, but being first in
the country has its advantages. "For
the production models it's not a big
problem; carmakers have enough of
them and can supply both Detroit and
Montréal. The problem is in the concept cars; most of the time those models
are unique and if [one is] displayed in
Detroit we won't get it in Montreal. So
we have to pick models that were featured a year before."
But contrary to Detroit, where some
car companies are not showing up,
Montréal attracts virtually all of them.
The Mitsubishi GT-PHEV was on display in Montreal.
The limited availability of concept cars
means that showgoers can only ogle
current models, such as the Ferrari
LaFerrari. ( P H O T O S : B E N O I T C H A R E T T E )
"The only car company missing this
year was Tesla, and they told us they
would be here next year," Perreira said.
In Detroit many of the exotics have
been "out of the picture" in recent
years, he said, including Ferrari,
Lamborghini, Bentley, Rolls-Royce
and Aston Martin. In addition to those
names, the 2017 NAIAS also had to do
without participation from Porsche,
Jaguar Land Rover, Mini, Mitsubishi
and Tesla. All those names (but Tesla)
were in Montréal and will be in
Toronto.
Despite the timing, Perreira hasn't
seriously considered moving the show
dates for many years. "There are many
reasons for this. First, we have to consider the calendar and the physical
building where the show is held."
Even though it overlaps the dates
for Detroit, Montreal is the first major
Canadian auto show, "and we always
get more premieres than Toronto or
other major Canadian shows.
"Second, le Palais des Congrès, where
it is staged, is a popular venue for many
major conventions and it would be hard
to take over this facility at another time
in the season. We tried many years ago
to [move] the show to November to be
ahead of Detroit, but the attendance
was not good. People were shopping for
Christmas."
And moving to March is not an
option, "because Toronto would be in
front of us and it would get all the premieres." - ANC
Montreal show allowed patrons
to take laps in electric cars
By BENOIT CHARETTE
QUEBEC CORRESPONDENT
MONTREAL - It was a
record year for manufacturer unveilings at the
Montréal International
Auto Show, Jan.
20-29, with five North
American premieres.
Hyundai unveiled
the Sport Concept and
the wild-looking RN30
Concept, Kia presented
the new Rio small car,
Mitsubishi showed the
GT-PHEV concept and
Toyota unveiled the tiny
COMS urban commuter.
Among the 40
Canadian premieres,
Chevrolet showed the
most, with the 2018
Equinox, 2017 Cruze
Hatch and diesel, 2017
Silverado HD Duramax,
2017 Camaro ZL1 and 1LE
and the 2017 Corvette
Gran Sport.
In all, more than 500
Kia premiered the new Kia Rio at the Montréal
International Auto Show. It was one of five North
American premieres.
vehicles were displayed.
ELECTRICS TO DRIVE
In collaboration with
CAA-Québec, visitors
had the opportunity
to test-drive nine electric or hybrid plug-in
vehicles, including the
new Chevrolet Bolt EV.
Also on hand for loops
around the auto show
were a Nissan Leaf, Kia
Soul EV, Chevrolet Volt,
Ford Focus EV, the more
upscale BMW i3 and X5
plug-ins and the most
affordable electric car on
the Canadian market, the
Mitsubishi i-MiEV.
"With the Quebec
zero-emission law coming soon, we are convinced that the number of people wanting
to drive an electric car
will increase this year,"
says automotive expert
at CAA-Québec, Jesse
Caron. - ANC
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - February 2017
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - Intro
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 1
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 2
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 3
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 4
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 5
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 6
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 7
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 8
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 9
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 10
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 11
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 12
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 13
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 14
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 15
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 16
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 17
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 18
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 19
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 20
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 21
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 22
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 23
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 24
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 25
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 26
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 27
Automotive News Canada - February 2017 - 28
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