This year’s Electric Vehicle Showcase comes with a new spin

The ins and outs of electric vehicles (EVs) will be in the spotlight on Sunday, April 28, as the Town of Aurora’s Electric Vehicle Showcase returns to the Stronach Aurora Recreation Complex – but this year’s showcase will be a new spin on an annual event.

Set to be held inside for the first time, the EV Showcase will take over both of the SARC’s ice pads, allowing for expert talks, a chance to get up close and personal with vehicles supplied by local dealerships, and even take a test drive.

“We’ve been slowly gaining traction and momentum for this event year after year – and with our third annual event, it’s indoors,” says Cindy Shaver of the Town of Aurora. “We were able to secure both the Pfaff and the Toyota arenas and moving indoors we had a lot more space to work with, enabling us to really grow the event this year. 

“EVs are gaining momentum and traction and a lot of dealerships are really eager to showcase the cars that they have. Most of our local dealerships are involved, so you can expect a variety of EVs on display, including a few newbies that people might not be familiar with. On top of that, we’ve expanded [our] speaker stage, which is front and centre in the Pfaff Arena.”

With the event opening its doors at 10 a.m., the speaker stage will spark to life at 10.30 with Ken Bokor of the EV Revolution Show, who will present EV101 focusing on the history of the electric vehicle, the current EV market, purchase options, and advantages of getting in on the market.

Next up at 11.30 a.m. will be the Great Ontario EV Road Trip with Toronto Star reporter Marco Chown Oved, who recently returned from a 2,300-km road trip into northern Ontario looking at various points in the EV supply chain “from mine, to refinery, to steel plant, to battery plant, to assembly line.”

EV Charging 101 will follow at 12.30 p.m. with Kush Obhrai of Ivy Charging network; followed by From Gadgets to the Grid: Batteries & Our sustainable Future led by Tim Burrows, producer of Canada Talks Cars and member of the Electric Vehicle Society. Wrapping up the speaker tage will be Heather Smiles, vice-president of investor relations and corporate development at Electra Battery Materials with Building a North American Supply Chain for EV Battery Materials.

Another highlight will be the “test track” where attendees will be able to take a spin behind the wheel of micro-mobility vehicles, including Frank Stronach’s Sarit.

“There will be a number of those small micro-mobility cars that you’ll be able to drive around inside on our test track, which we’re dubbing our Electric Avenue,” says Shaver. “There is also going to be Trek Bicycles, which [will] be providing a number of e-bikes [for Electric Avenue], so for people who are looking at maybe not an electric vehicle, but wanting to hop onto that electric bandwagon and maybe try out an electric bike and see what that is all about.”

Also new this year is a large Kids Zone that will offer myriad family-friendly activities to stimulate young minds in learning the science behind EVs.

“We’ll have STEM Minds on site that is going to have a number of different robotics opportunities for kids of different ages and depending on their age, the activity will change, but it is all robotic,” says Shaver. “You can drive mini-robotic cars around a track [like] a remote control car but…you’re using the science and the engineering to actually build a car. As for the older kids, you actually get more of a hands-on opportunity to look at the engineering and how those are built. That’s going to be really interesting and then we will have car-related craft activities where small kids could create their own car out of recycled materials and we also have what’s called a Pit-Stop Challenge. This is really cool – it’s an opportunity for kids big and small to learn how to change a tire. Which, whether you drive an EV or gas-powered vehicles, is kind of an essential skill I personally don’t have!

“We have fairly progressive targets, I think, to reduce our emissions by 80 per cent from our 2018 emissions, by 2050….so we can’t do this alone. We really need to, as a community, learn, and make choices that are going to benefit. Putting this on is an opportunity to educate our community and hopefully start that conversation to make those big changes.”

For more on this year’s Electric Vehicle Showcase, visit aurora.ca/en/your-government/electric-vehicle-showcase.aspx.

Brock Weir is a federally funded Local Journalism Initiative reporter at the Auroran