A new automaker has entered Canada’s electric vehicle market giving some consumers looking to purchase a new vehicle more options.
Lotus, owned by the Chinese Geely Group, recently shipped its first Eletre EVs to Canada under a Canada-China deal signed in January. The premium SUV, made in Wuhan, is the first Chinese-owned and Chinese-built EV available for sale in Canada. The high-end vehicle starts at $119,000, while the fully loaded model sells for $159,000.
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Chinese companies BYD and Chery are also expected to enter the Canadian market in the coming months. [managing director & publisher of Automotive News Canada Tim] Dimopoulos says those companies will likely begin by importing high-end luxury models that offer dealers higher profit margins and appeal to a niche market.
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Buy at your own risk
Intelligence and cybersecurity experts have repeatedly raised concerns with the Chinese-made vehicles citing significant national security and privacy concerns. Experts consider the EVs smartphones on wheels. The experts say their concerns stem from laws in China that require Chinese companies, especially those with some degree of state ownership, to hand over data if requested.
Jody Thomas, Canada’s former National Security and Intelligence Advisor to prime minister Justin Trudeau, said that by law the Chinese state has access to any data gathered by the EVs.
“It doesn’t mean they will access the data, but it means they can, should they choose to,” she said. “The risk at this point is more a plausible risk.”
Thomas says data like routes, cell phone contacts, driving patterns, phone conversations, and recordings from your car’s camera, all provide information about a driver.
“At sort of the base level, it’s a privacy issue, but broader than that, it becomes a potential for espionage when you aggregate the data, when you look at it as more than just the individual driver.”
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Thomas says consumers need to consider these potential risks when purchasing a Chinese made EV and potentially mitigate the risk by choosing to avoid connecting a work device to their vehicle.
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