Stellantis plant in Windsor, Ontario
For over a century, Ontario has been a powerhouse in Canadian auto manufacturing. With an industry on the cusp on unprecedented change, is Canada positioned to continue to be a dominant force? Will we be able to ride the changing face of mobility to a new golden era of Canadian auto production?
In 2017, the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid started rolling off the lines of FCA’s plant in Windsor, Ontario. The highly anticipated sibling to the gasoline-powered Pacifica, the hybrid announced the company’s Ontario foray into an electrified future. The birthplace of minivans as we know them since 1983, when we all finally learned what a “minivan” was, they’ve pumped out more than 15 million of them was going high-tech.
“A faulty battery can do more damage than you think,” says Chris Muir, mechanic and professor at Centennial College. “Battery problems can lead to a damaged – or destroyed – alternator, which means you’ll be facing even more costs.” The battery is an electrical reservoir; surges of power, like blasting defrosters or using the horn, come from it. After the battery starts the engine, the alternator replaces that charge. A battery that isn’t taking the alternator’s charge is forcing the alternator into overtime, and putting the alternator in the line of fire for demand surges. A weak battery shortening the life of an alternator just means higher repair bills.
A catalytic converter, a part of every car’s exhaust system since 1993, receives pollutants from the car’s engine, and breaks them down to their molecular level components so they can then be released back into the environment, in a far cleaner form than what is created when your engine produces power from gasoline or diesel fuel. It’s essentially a box that speeds up a chemical reaction.
The reason it is so attractive to thieves is the precious metals that are used to make it work. Platinum, rhodium, and palladium are bought and sold like gold and copper. Palladium is currently more expensive than gold, and rhodium is
But when it comes to impaired drivers, some forces have tested it as a last resort: they can’t figure out any other way to get escalating impaired rates down, as fatalities and injuries go up. The problem is that
no study exists that says it works. Embarrassed and humiliated drivers may end up clearing their names at the end of the process, but
after their neighbours and co-workers have banged the gavel on their assumed guilt.
You can’t un-ring a bell, and jobs, reputations, and relationships could end up as collateral damage. Still, we shouldn’t throw out valuable information if we can find a way to use it responsibly.
Cars. I remain convinced that, sometimes, entire shows are made just to feature a car.
Smokey and the Bandit without a Trans Am? Forget it.
Bullitt?
The Gumball Rally?
Knight Rider? If you spend enough time in your car, chances are good you’re gonna name it.
My Dad had a 1966 Rambler named Betsy, which according to some lists is a very popular name for cars. My Dad wasn’t a list-follower; he named the car after a horse he’d had back on the farm in Saskatchewan in the early 1930s. As Betsy got a little long in the tooth – the car, not the horse – my Dad got kinder and gentler with her. Even with a new car parked alongside, he had a hard time letting her go.