As the new year approaches, here are electric car adventure’s ten musings for the new year. Quiet progress is the theme for 2026, but some transformational things might still happen such as the Chinese EV’s entering Canada’s market, to quiet progress on the charging station front, 2026 promises good progress.
- Chinese EVs enter the Canadian market? While Mr. Carney and Mr. Xi have made progress on resolving their trade differences, neither budged during a recent meeting (source). Yet China’s appetite for soybeans keeps increasing (source), and Detroit does not really want to make cars in Canada (source). So, Mr. Carney might be trying to persuade the Chinese to set up shop in Ontario, similar to what the Japanese did back in the 90’s (source). Mr. Carney does face an uphill battle, as China’s EV manufacturing oversupply puts a damper on any new factory plans, but some manufacturers might be keen to try anyways, opening the door to more useful options in the cheap EV category than the Fiat 500 e.
- Quiet progress on the charging station front. Expect the charging station roll out to continue in 2026. Small but impact full steps such as Ivy’s recent doubling of active charging ports at busy Onroute rest-stops. In the past, only one car could plug into a given charging station, even if it had two plugs on it, thankfully that is now changing with the roll out of upgraded charging stations (source). New locations continue to open: North Frontenac (source), Lakeland networks continued expansion (source), and many more. Look forward to better EV charging experience in 2026.
- Solar boost? With electricity prices increasing quite dramatically (source) in November of 2025, the province is looking under every nook and cranny for more kilowatt hours. One place they have yet to look, is allowing net-metering from solar customers who took the 5k home renovation solar grant (source). Squinting at Toronto Hydro’s 2024 sustainability report suggests that this could unlock 10 MW-peak or 11.6 GWh/year of solar (source, and source), at the stroke of a pen, cheap green power indeed.
- Rivian goes mass market? In SUV obsessed North America Rivian has been making waves as a fine purveyor of SUVs and pickup trucks. Their R2 is due in 2026 (source), and might be their “Tesla-model-3” moment, ushering in a post-Trump EV boom.
- Slate’s debut. The R2 is far from the only new EV expected in 2026. Slate’s new EV, appears to be a small pickup-truck at first glance, think 1980’s Toyota (source). But a long list of custom options transforms this to a SUV, Dune buggy, work truck and the list goes on. The pricing is also refreshing, promised to be “in-the-twentees”, likely referring to something like the new Nissan Leaf, which is priced at 29 990 USD (source), or 47 855 CAD (source). A far cry from the F 150 lightning priced from 65k-110k.
- More wind? The wind seems to be shifting in Mr. Ford’s office, initially a wind-skeptic, going as far as forking over 231M$ to kill a wind farm project (source) Mr. Ford’s government seems to be looking to double wind generation in Ontario by 2035 (source). To meet this goal expect to see some movement on the wind front in Ontario in 2026, and for good reason, wind remains one the cheapest ways to generate electricity, way cheaper than nuclear (source).
- Carbon capture and storage. As part of the “grand-bargain” between Alberta and Ottawa, Alberta will need to get very good at carbon capture and storage (source). So far, results have been mixed, with the costs being between $50 and $150 depending on ones financial assumptions (mostly the treatment of fixed costs, source). If producing a barrel of Alberta’s finest generates 60 kG of CO2 (source), using the figures above, stashing that carbon costs between $3.13 and $9.38. Alberta’s oil folks have their work cut out for them, as a barrel of Alberta’s finest currently retails for about $50, CCS could add up to 20% to that total.
- Africa’s solar miracle continues. 2025 saw record solar installations across Africa (source). And no wonder, solar is perhaps the cheapest way to generate electricity (source). Particularly if you have no old power plants to refurbish, like we do here in North America. Clean, cheap and perhaps most importantly, easy to scale up or down. Start with a few panels to charge your electronics, and grow to something that powers everything in your house, and garage.
- Batteries get even cheaper. Its been amazing to watch sodium-ion batteries evolve. From a concept to dirt cheap batteries, 2024 and 2025 saw very rapid progress on sodium ion batteries (source). All this translates into cheaper batteries, perhaps offering cell-level costs of $50/kWh (source). For applications that are not weight sensitive such as my home battery or more generally stationary storage, this could usher in a boom in grid-storage. My installer is offering something in the vicinity of 1k/kWh of storage installed, these advantages could drop the cost of home battery installations, making an iffy business case a no-brainer.
- Solar gets more efficient. The solar panels on my roof are only about 20% efficient (source). Yet already cost-competitive with Toronto Hydro (source). Imagine what would happen if that figure was 40% or even 80%? Cost per W-peak installed would tumble perhaps by 400%! Look forward to steadily improving efficiencies in 2026 from all sorts of neat ideas, Perovskites (source), layering (source) and many more.
With all that 2026 promises to be another exciting year with lots of quiet progress.
Electric car adventures 