Toronto, Ontario — In this weekly electric and autonomous vehicle report, Statistics Canada says zero-emissions vehicle represented just over six percent of Canada’s overall vehicle registrations for Q4 2021; General Motors partners with a Toronto company in the name of driverless tech and Vancouver Island gets it first hydrogen-fuelling station.
Six percent celebration
It appears Canadians are opting for electric vehicles at a slightly higher rate; zero-emissions vehicles represented nearly 6.2 percent of all vehicle registrations in Canada for Q4 2021.
Overall, there were 20,779 new ZEV registrations in Canada between Oct. 1, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2021; 14,021 of those units were battery-electric models.
The quarter marks the first time the overall market share for ZEVs has topped six percent. In Q3 2021, the ZEV market share was 5.4 percent.
While overall ZEV registrations for Q4 2021 were lower in comparison to Q3 2021, Statistics Canada notes that the relative decline in total vehicle registrations was even greater.
For the entirety of 2021, Canada’s ZEV market share was up 5.2 percent; up from 3.5 percent for the full-year 2020.
Untethered at GM
Toronto-based artificial intelligence company Untether AI has teamed up with General Motors to develop AI perception systems for autonomous vehicles.
Untether AI said it would collaborate with GM on the demonstration of an autonomous vehicle perception system based on the company’s at-memory computation technology.
The project is receiving one million dollars in funding from the provincial government’s Ontario Vehicle Innovation Network (OVIN).
“The project’s goal is to help increase autonomous vehicle performance by providing faster and more accurate vision response, reducing the power draw of various AV systems to increase battery life, and even helping to enable the downsizing of vehicle batteries,” Untether said in its announcement release. “Additionally, this solution will aim to save on overall autonomous vehicle control system cost.”
Hello, Hydrogen
Vancouver Island just opened its first hydrogen-fuelling station on the Island, located in Saanich.
Vancouver-based Hydrogen Technology and Energy Corporation (HTEC) has partnered with 7-Eleven Canada to open Vancouver Island’s first public hydrogen-fuelling station at an Esso in Saanich. The Saanich station received $500,000 from the Province’s CleanBC Go Electric program and $1 million from Natural Resource Canada’s Electric Vehicle and Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Deployment Initiative.
There are currently three other public hydrogen-fuelling stations in B.C.: one in Vancouver, one in North Vancouver and another in Burnaby.
