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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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.
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?
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
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