Hey Mark...

Hey Mark,

I know you’re getting a lot of letters in the mail right now.

The oil companies wrote one.

The ecojustice.ca folk wrote one.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Allies had their say.

The Christian Labour Association of Canada wanted to share some words.

You probably got something in the mail from Chuck, that old bean.

And then the rocker in the free world himself, Neil Young, wanted to let you know that “he’s with you.”

Let’s be clear: This isn’t likely enough mail to save Canada Post from insolvency. But that’s a problem no one is focused on at the moment.

On Friday, I watched you outline your government’s priorities, and I think you said many of the right things. Give your speech writer the day off.

But there are some ideas I haven’t seen anyone include in any of their letters that I think are worth noting.

Fostering a Robust Canadian Automotive Industry

Establishing Canada as an independent automotive Superpower (which wasn’t mentioned in your press statement) will take time and a lot of investment.

I suggest focusing on a few specific areas.

First, embrace the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association’s proposed automotive competitiveness framework. I personally don’t agree that you need to end provincial and federal EV mandates just yet. We’ve made impressive progress. Start by revisiting and revising those EV targets. On all of CADA’s other points—ensuring the banks stay out of leasing, adopting Japanese, Korean, and European safety standards to ease the adoption of additional vehicle imports, scrapping the luxury tax, and paying dealers the iZEV rebates they are owed—that makes sense to me. 

Second, let’s figure out how best to support local Canadian automotive manufacturers like Edison Motors, Lion Electric, CAN-EV, Magna, Sarit Mobility, Project Arrow, and any other local mobility entrepreneur that isn’t yet a household name. 

Third, we need to determine how we want to engage with China. If BYD is willing to set up manufacturing in Cambodia, I bet they’d also be willing to set up shop in the Great White North (no offence, Cambodia). I’d also bet five to ten additional Chinese OEMs that predominantly produce EVs and PHEVs would follow. Having those brands manufacturing and selling here on the ground would help us swiftly achieve our EV targets.

To get there quickly, we must embrace automation at an unprecedented scale.

Become An Energy Superpower For All Types Of Energy

We need more pipelines, full stop. As the country with the world’s fifth-largest known oil reserves and fourth-largest production capacity, we should be collectively much wealthier than we are. More pipelines will allow us to further diversify who we sell that oil to. 

We are also the world’s third-largest producer of hydroelectricity and the second-largest source of uranium. This doesn’t even account for Canada's wind, solar, hydrogen, and geothermal opportunities. With all our resources, all our land and all our water, we could power the fucking world.

Arguably, Canada is already an Energy Superpower.

We just need to get our fucking energy out of Canada, out of the hands of the US, and into the hands of other countries.

To expedite the construction of those pipelines and help maintain and monitor them in the future, we need to invest in pipeline-building robots.

We’ll also need high-tension powerline building and maintenance robots to help shuffle around the electricity we produce.

Oh yeah, and there are robots that can help deploy solar as well.

Military Robots And AI Dominance

Currently, the US special forces outnumber the entire Canadian military. Let that sink in for a minute.

I’m not suggesting we should start a war with the US. I’m just saying there’s no fucking way we could win if one did start.

Canada doesn’t have the bodies to fight any modern war.

However, if we’ve learned anything from the Ukraine/Russian conflict, modern warfare is fought with a lot of UAVs, drones, robot dogs, and other autonomous vehicles.

Canada needs to reevaluate its current and future military spending, with a special focus on revising and modernizing its defence purchases, upgrades, and maintenance projects for land, sea, and air equipment. Instead of what might have been planned, we need robots—lots of robots.

We also need to embrace our AI capabilities to become an AI-based robot Superpower that is at the forefront of AI warfare and defence.

Construction Robots

In addition to our military robots, we also need construction robots.

If we have any hope of solving our housing crisis, we need to build millions of homes.

Similar to our military problem, we don’t have the workers, the people, to build those homes fast enough.

There has been talk of how prefabricated, factory-built homes might help.

IMHO, we need to next level the the shit out of factory-built housing. Part of the solution here is also to have (wait for it) more robots.

I Know I Sound Crazy

Yeah, I know this sounds fucking nuts. But if we have any hope in hell of weaning ourselves off the US economy, we will need to move fast.

To move fast, we will need new levels of automation—the sort of automation that is only possible by turning Canada into a Robot Superpower.

-Growdy

China’s Automotive Expansion

BYD's newest and largest car carrier, the BYD Shenzhen, started its maiden ocean voyage to Brazil with over 7,000 vehicles onboard. cnevpost.com

GAC has a new concept truck that looks like the unholy love child of a Cybertruck and a Hummer. carscoops.com

Nissan launched the tech-packed N7 EV sedan in China. carscoops.com

CATL became the first company to meet China’s new “No Fire, No Explosion” national safety battery standards. carnewschina.com

Must-Know Musk News

Texans vote to decide if Elon gets to have his own town. theguardian.com

The Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla’s board is looking for a new CEO to replace Elon. wsj.com

Tesla’s board chair denies WSJ claims, says it never happened. theverge.com

Tesla sales in Europe continue to really suck. reuters.com

New data suggests that the Tesla Powerwall 3’s built-in inverter is disrupting the US solar inverter market. electrek.co

Rise Of The Machines

The LYNX M20 is a robot dog that has wheels for feet and can negotiate nearly any type of terrain. youtube.com

Hugging Face released a new 3D-printed robotic arm with a starting price of around $100 USD. techcrunch.com

Chery is testing using humanoid robots as sales assistants in their dealerships. autonews.com

Are you ready for Robocop? Thailand and China are testing out demonstration robots in their police forces. foxnews.com

In the not-too-distant future, your robot vacuum might also be able to water your plants and play with your cat. bbc.com

Energy

Spain, Portugal, and parts of France lost power earlier this week. No one knows exactly why that happened. wired.com

China's wind and solar capacity exceeded other sources of power for the first time. reuters.com

The Trump administration plans to cancel over $15 billion in carbon capture and renewable energy funding, as well as $6 billion planned for EV chargers. reuters.com

Canadian researchers broke a world record, bringing us closer to functional nuclear fusion. glassalmanac.com

But Wait, There’s More

Isuzu has a new, funky Ford Ranger-sized electric pickup it plans to sell in Europe. theverge.com

The Donald signed an executive order and a proclamation on Tuesday to​ ease auto tariffs, allowing marginal reimbursements for US car producers’ imported parts. cnn.com, whitehouse.gov

Car companies are yanking their profit guidance for the year as they grapple with the ever-changing tariff debacle. theverge.com

Mary Barra guesses that auto tariffs could cost GM around $5 billion this year. cnn.com

GM plans to cut back to a two-shift schedule from three at its Oshawa plant due to softening demand and “trade-related challenges”. reuters.com

Jim Farley weirdly takes the opportunity to repeatedly remind people that Ford is a US company and that employee pricing is on now while being interviewed by CNN. youtube.com

Stellantis plans to move some pickup-truck production to Michigan from Mexico to avoid tariffs. theglobeandmail.com

Stellantis’ Windsor Assembly plant will be closed for another week. globalnews.ca

Toyota Motors plans to buy out its Toyota Industries division. reuters.com

Waymo and Toyota announced a partnership to explore bringing self-driving tech to personal vehicles. cnbc.com

VW has cut headcount in Germany by around 7,000 since starting its cost-cutting drive in late 2023. reuters.com

Mercedes-Benz plans to expand vehicle production at its Alabama plant. cnbc.com

JLR restarts car exports to the US. reuters.com

Polestar has a rearview camera problem. reuters.com

The US House Republicans voted to revoke California’s ability to enact its own, tougher pollution regulations for vehicles. theverge.com

Aurora’s driverless trucks are now hauling freight in the US. theverge.com

Magna’s driverless delivery vehicles are coming to some Toronto neighbourhoods. cp24.com, autonews.com

Poland's Volonaut Airbike is basically an Endor-esque Star Wars land speeder. youtube.com, volonaut.com

The Change Optimist is presenting our newly minted Consumer Automotive Research And Stuff (C.A.R.S.) at Dealer Huddle Next on May 7th. Buy your tickets here:

eventbrite.com

OEMs, Dealers, and folk who work at agencies that work for OEMs can use the promo code Growdy2025 to get 50% off their ticket price.