Toronto, Ontario -- Electric mobility is moving into a new phase—one marked by tighter integration between automakers, energy networks and technology firms. From charging access and national investments to new data on EV ownership and the rise of advanced automation, the past two weeks has seen a series of announcements that underline how quickly this transformation is occurring.
Uber shifts to fully electric rides
Uber has retired its “Uber Green” option and rebranded it as “Uber Electric,” signalling that its low-emission service now consists entirely of fully electric vehicles in Canada and the U.S.
The company reports that EVs make up just over nine percent of kilometres driven on its platform and says its new “battery-aware matching” feature helps pair riders with drivers whose remaining charge fits the trip length.
Despite the progress, Uber says high purchase costs and limited public charging continue to hinder its plan to reach a fully zero-emission fleet by 2030.
Canadian EV registrations climb sharply
New Statistics Canada data show that 488,612 battery-electric vehicles were registered nationwide in 2024—a 48 percent jump from the year before—bringing electric models to about 1.9 percent of all vehicles on the road.
Medium-duty electric trucks and vans saw the fastest growth, helped by new model availability and fleet incentives. Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia led adoption, but analysts expect expansion to cool in 2025 as federal and provincial rebates are reduced.
Governments fund national charging expansion
More than $10 million in federal and provincial funding will be used to install hundreds of new EV chargers across Atlantic Canada, Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia.
Projects include highway-corridor fast-charging sites in Alberta and six high-power stations between Winnipeg and Thompson, set to open by 2027. Officials say the investment aims to improve long-distance travel for EV drivers and bring charging access to rural and Indigenous communities that remain underserved.
Lucid and NVIDIA pursue higher autonomy
Luxury EV maker Lucid Motors has announced a partnership with chip and AI developer NVIDIA to bring advanced self-driving capabilities to future Lucid vehicles. The collaboration will integrate NVIDIA’s DRIVE AV software—an artificial-intelligence platform that processes camera, radar and lidar data—with Lucid’s electric-vehicle architecture to target what engineers call Level 4 autonomy.
Under the Society of Automotive Engineers scale, Level 4 describes vehicles capable of driving themselves in most environments without human intervention, though a driver can still take control when needed.
Lucid says pairing its energy-efficient hardware with NVIDIA’s computing system could pave the way for production models that handle nearly all driving tasks automatically, moving the company closer to true hands-off operation.
