I have a better alternative: invest in viable alternatives to driving! expand protected bike lanes, build the damn high speed rail, more trains, trams and bus lines. One more asphalt lane for cars wont solve traffic problems :)
That would work for much of the population that lives within 100 miles of the US border, but there is a lot of rural and green space in Canada, and bikes aren’t great in Canadian winters. Canada needs good car options too.
As of the 2021 census, nearly 6 million people (16% of the total Canadian population) lived in rural areas of Canada.
84% of Canadians live in cities, and that’s where good urban infrastructure is the most needed.
Making car-centric infrastructure mostly electric will help a bit, but not a whole lot.And spending that money to get us cheaper transit in the long term will probably also free up more resources to help the remaining 16%.
As much as I hate Elon, this is a terrible idea. Cheap Chinese trash mobiles built by Uyghur slave labor are not the answer.
How about we build cars in Canada instead?
Except they aren’t trash, they’re better than Teslas that’s for sure.
They are still data hungry, surveillance machines that are allways online and gps tracked. We need cars without that kinda shit built in.
American car company secretly send your driving data to your insurance company so they can squeeze more out from you for any minor reason they see fit. There’s no reason canada insurance company won’t do that. Scared about chinese car collecting your data is kinda missed the point, you should have stronger data protection instead.
There has been talks about forcing Chinese cars to come over disconnected. Every new car is a surveillance machine. The western brands will not be asked to disconnect anything and it will probably be illegal to do so yourself, so Chinese cars might be an actual win in that regard.
I’de rather China have my data than an company over here. What are they gunna do with it that would affect me?
that’s exactly what got us in this mess in the first place.
What mess? American Imperialism / Capitalism imploding on itself?
A foreign power having far, far too much control over our economic possessions. Information is a resource; what they do with it is inconsequential, we have to stop giving it away to people simply because they’re our ‘trade partners’ right now.
So a direct consequence of Usamerican capitalism/Imperialism, got it.
Correlation attacks, China is king of hoovering up data.
Overly dramatic example: you are in the armed forces, you have a TikTok account, you post a bunch of shit that shows you are in the armed forces. You get deployed for some covert fuckabout and are told to leave your phone at home. You turn off your phone, pick up 3 of your buddies in your Chinese EV and drive to the base/airport/sea port. Dozens of people do this and by seeing the pattern China knows that a bunch of armed forces are being told to quietly deploy.
A less dramatic example might be figuring out where politicians are by knowing where their employees are.
Why would I give a shit about China knowing about where murderers are?
Nobody hoovers up more data than the US.
Remember when Elon remotely unlocked that cybertruck recently and accessed the cameras?
Nobody hoovers up more data than the US.
The US can’t even unlock an iPhone without calling in 3rd parties. EVERY Chinese made device collects data, and every Chinese business gives full access to the Chinese government. The US government does collect data but it’s no where near the scale of the Chinese.
Remember when Elon remotely unlocked that cybertruck recently and accessed the cameras?
He unlocked a device made by a company he owns, running software they designed on a network they operate. All that shows is that Tesla’s vehicles are not properly secured and remote access can be abused by Tesla employees.
