Toronto, Ontario – In this week’s electric and autonomous vehicle report, Volkswagen Canada announces changes to their website to reduce digital carbon emissions, the University of Windsor preps for a new vehicle hub, and Sudbury, Ontario’s Collège Boréal gears up for their first Battery Electric Vehicle Maintenance program.
VW goes Lo-Fi
Volkswagen Canada announced that they will be cutting carbon wherever they can, including online, as the company pursues “digital carbon footprint” reducing measures.
In collaboration with TYPE1, Volkswagen has launched The Carbon-Neutral Net to educate Canadians about sustainability in the digital world.
In essence, VW has taken their webpages concerning EVs, the ID.4 for example, and converted them into simpler, black-and-white ASCII text-based articles and images, in the effort to reduce carbon emissions down to the digital level.
In this effort, VW has boosted their webpages to the top ninety-ninth percentile for digital carbon emissions, according to websitecarbon.com.
SHIELDs up
A new facility out of the University of Windsor will be the first of its kind in Canada to tackle cybersecurity issues in self-driving vehicles, according to the school.
SHIELD Automotive Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence is a space that seeks to understand the vulnerabilities in the hardware and software used in autonomous vehicles. In return, the centre will develop policies and skills to protect the data being collected.
One of the centre’s founders and directors Mitra Mirhassani said people “have to be worried,” about the data being collected and the ways in which it could impact them.
“Right now if you are driving a car or anything like that don’t worry. But pretty soon, we have to all be sure that the devices and everything that we have are basically you know secure somehow,” said Mirhassani, who is also a professor in UWindsor’s Electrical and Computer Engineering department.
Planning Ahead
Sudbury-based Collège Boréal has announced a partnership with mining equipment manufacturer, Epiroc Canada, to offer students a Battery Electric Vehicle Maintenance program.
The 40-hour online course is set to kick off on Feb. 9 and is to be followed by hands-on training provided in classroom and workshop settings.
“Epiroc’s goal in this partnership with Collège Boréal is to further the education of all personnel involved in the growing field of electrification in mining, with an added focus on safety and training requirements for batteries, electric drivetrains, battery equipment and energy storage, said Shawn Samuels, product manager for Rocvolt Canada, Epiroc.
“Epiroc will be actively participating and supporting the recent Collège Boréal initiative for the Battery Electric Maintenance Program and will continue to partner with Collège Boréal on further training initiatives. This includes training tools and materials that will make the future training courses the best in class for years to come.”
