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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30 Comments
iamthetot@piefed.ca · 47 pts · 45d
Why not issue the same warning against anything and everything USA?
Meta, Google, Apple, all capable and willing to hand over all the same data to the US gov't.
bigfish@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 45d
Probably the only difference is that the Chinese companies don't share their data (as readily or at all) with the Canadian government.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.org · -4 pts · 45d
Yeah, but at least the Chinese cars are cheaper, right? Right?
@iamthetot@piefed.ca
nyan@lemmy.cafe · 8 pts · 45d
The low-end Chinese vehicles are cheaper. These are not them, and I don't expect we'll be seeing them this year. So what?
And the Chinese data is probably better protected from everyone except the Chinese government than the American data is. So I'd bet that the Chinese government has the data collected by American cars too, if they've decided they want it—they just aren't the only people who've got it.
Jason2357@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 45d
The american companies tend to sell a lot of the data on the open markets via sketchy "data brokers" so China can just buy it.
Auli@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 45d
Don't get this. I see them not handing it over as a good thing.
twopi@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 45d
Chinese cars are cheaper. Cope harder.
What's the price of a American or European luxury brand EV? You lead with price because you know that'd the actual argument provide no comparison.
cheat700000007@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 45d
All modern cars realistically
ShadowRam@fedia.io · 4 pts · 45d
Yeah, but if you hand it to the Chinese instead, then Canada doesn't get access to it via 5-eyes.
Tm12@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 45d
Sinophobia
schwim@piefed.zip · 34 pts · 45d
At $100k+, that's not going to be an issue for me.
isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 42d
The financial risk is greater than the data risk
Auli@lemmy.ca · 20 pts · 45d
What a bunch of bullshit. All this feet mongering abbot data collection. But it is no different hen america and no theory about it. Microsoft has said if the US asks for data from another region they have to comply no matter what the law of the other region says. But everybody skips over that cause america good i guess.
ChokingHazard@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 45d
Not only that, the American companies sell the very same data on the open market but where’s the pearl clutching for that? Makes me so mad because it’s all fine if the Chinese buy it with cash.
Mpatch@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 44d
Right the American data goes straight to insurance companies to find anything to raise your rates.
isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 42d
mmmm feet mongering 🤤
Not familiar with hen america though, only know north and south america. And yes, Abbott does collect data.
villasv@lemmy.ca · 15 pts · 45d
That's amusing because >90% of us are walking around with smartphones made in China. And definitely a bunch of us are running TikTok on it… so, just one more Chinese item in our lives.
Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.ca · 15 pts · 45d
Are we surprised that a Lotus (a luxury brand sports car on par with a Ferrari) is selling for a high amount of money?
For comparison, estimates of a BYD range from 25k - 33k.
CP24 and Scotty really bringing out the sinophobia and hoping the audience is stupid enough not to get into the details.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 45d
It's not sinophobic, if the goal is cheaper EVs and there is a limit on the amount brought in then why are we wasting import slots on luxury vehicles?
Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 44d
I think it's best if we clear some things up and expand a bit on what the actual agreement says. Because CP24 is a rage bait agenda driven circus.
The primary goal of the agreement is not about cheaper EVs unfortunately. If it was, then there wouldn't be a limit to begin with. The average EV from China just happens to be cheaper than other EVs. But this is Carney's agreement and he doesn't do things for the poors. He does things for the corporations and politics.
Yes, there's a limit, but the details of the agreement matter:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/tesla-poised-early-winnter-china-canada-electric-vehicle-deal-9.7050891
So 24.5k imported are priced below 35,000 CAD.
24.5k imported are above that.
(You can already see how this deal's primary goal is not about cheaper EVs).
Teslas shipped from Shanghai have eaten into the majority of the quota that come above that price point.
From the article in OPs post here:
US companies (Tesla and Lotus US) are shipping their China-produced EVs to Canada.
So CP24 is trying to make flashy headlines about 20 luxury EV cars and their prices while admitting in their article that there is demand for them? Not to mention that it's Lotus US that already has existing dealerships in Canada, not a new entrant.
And then fear monger about data-privacy issues, when ignoring pretty much every other car manufacturers existing and glaring data-privacy issues AND ignoring the security flaws of all current vehicles - but it wasn't a concern before, but it is now because "China".
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2026-02-16/ty-article-magazine/.premium/your-car-is-spying-on-you-and-israeli-firms-are-leading-the-surveillance-race/0000019c-6651-d2f0-a19c-7fdd81920000
https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-car-brand-reviewed-by-mozilla-including-ford-volkswagen-and-toyota-flunks-privacy-test/
https://cybernews.com/privacy/mozilla-cars-track-sexual-activity-sell-data/
Edited: grammar
karlhungus@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 44d
It's totally sinophobic (all new cars are spying cars, being afraid of Chinese spying cars without pointing out the other spying cars ig ores the facts). Agree on your second point though
Scotty@scribe.disroot.org · 1 pts · 42d
Where is all that 'let-Chinese-cars-in-because-they-are-cheap' hype going? Wasn't price the reason for the propaganda machine in Canada? Doesn't Canada need affordable cars anymore?
Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 42d
See my other response:
https://lemmy.ca/comment/24234942
Jason2357@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 45d
I really wish these people would care about these same things when Americans do it.
Corngood@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 45d
I just want an EV that's not a potato shaped SUV. Imagine buying a Lotus and getting one of those.
Karmanopoly@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 44d
D'oh !
Scotty@scribe.disroot.org · -4 pts · 45d
For comparison: The new vehicle average transaction price (ATP) in Canada in May was $49,220, down slightly from April and up 1.2% year-on-year.
twopi@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 45d
What's the average price of every market segment? You really are a propagandist.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.org · 0 pts · 42d
You can look it up yourself. The average ATP is well below 100k in each market segment.
The Chinese EVs that were celebrated as 'cheap' are now filling the luxury market. The almost ironic bit here is that this was known and intended, particularly by the Chinese side of the Canada-China deal.
In addition, we must note that most of the China-made cars in Canada now are Tesla, from the company's factory in Shanghai. And it will be Tesla that crabs the majority of the first batch of 24,500 cars coming to Canada from China. That's half of the entire deal.
Btw, China-made Teslas in Canada have a price of slightly more than 40,000.
All this so-called deal is a joke, but propagandists like you will continue to celebrate cheap Chinese cars.
twopi@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 42d
We're not getting the cheap models, only the luxury models.
What's the ATP of the market segment the luxury chinese models are selling into?
Can you show the MSRP of BYD cars in Brazil, and ASEAN countries as being above $100k?