The Unobvious Ones is a month-to-month have a look at movers and shakers who fly beneath the radar within the Canadian auto trade.
CHRIS BURNS
LONGER-LIFE BATTERIES ARE KEY TO EV ADOPTION
At its analysis facility in Halifax, Novonix is creating superior battery supplies and expertise, and utilizing a way referred to as coulometry that hurries up testing.
“We’re centered on supporting longer-life battery functions,” stated Chris Burns, CEO and co-founder. “That’s the vital linchpin in autos and vitality help techniques.”
The 34-year-old’s dad and mom had been engineers, and he grew up fascinated by science and expertise. He studied physics at Dalhousie College in Halifax and labored with professor Jeff Dahn, a pioneer in superior lithium-ion battery supplies.
“I might take my efforts in physics and direct them to one thing that felt impactful,” Burns stated. “It was the early days of this age of [vehicle] electrification, and I noticed the chance to be a part of this thrilling sector.”
The corporate grew out of a partnership with Dahn’s analysis group in 2013 whereas Burns was engaged on his PhD. The corporate collaborated on a analysis undertaking with Tesla, and in 2017 it grew to become a part of the Novonix Group, based mostly in Australia.
Halifax remained headquarters for the R&D division, whereas a manufacturing unit opened in Tennessee to fabricate battery supplies. Burns oversees each amenities. The corporate’s purchasers embody Honda, Bosch, LG Chem and Panasonic.
The Halifax centre builds small portions of batteries for testing utilizing ultra-high-precision coulometry, a course of co-developed by Burns and Dahn. It dramatically accelerates the required battery check cycles.
“We will get outcomes on how lengthy a battery will final in just some weeks, relatively than months or perhaps a yr of testing,” Burns stated. “We have to produce lithium-ion batteries that may last more than they do as we speak.”
ELPHIE GALANAKIS
MARKETING SKILLS FOR THE DIGITAL AGE
As Cadillac prepares to launch the Lyriq, the model’s first electrical automobile, it wants vibrant promoting to achieve a brand new viewers. From Cadillac Canada’s headquarters in Oshawa, Ont., Advertising and marketing and Communications Supervisor Elphie Galanakis works with advert companies on campaigns, selling the brand new automobile, which arrives this fall.
“We’re making an attempt to promote a automobile and we don’t have it but, and that’s difficult,” she stated. “So we’re figuring out the options and advantages, and making ready [customers] for the way an EV will adapt to their way of life.”
Galanakis, 44, manages all of Cadillac’s TV, print and digital promoting, together with the varied budgets, automobile launches and the automaker’s shopper web site and social media channels.
“We typically take what the U.S. is doing and adapt it for Canada, together with French translation. However now we have autonomy, and if I need one thing that’s Canadaspecific, I’ll put collectively a inventive temporary with the channels I wish to hit, who I wish to goal, and I’ll ship it to my company to give you concepts.”
Galanakis “fell in love” with promoting when she took advertising and marketing programs in college whereas incomes a sociology diploma. Out of faculty, she joined a Toronto advert company as a broadcast-media purchaser; it represented
Common Motors and he or she bought TV slots for Pontiac. She then labored on sponsorships and model integration at a TV station for 11 years.
“I noticed promoting budgets transfer from TV to digital, so I went to an company that was primarily digital to develop my digital ability set.”
She joined Cadillac in January 2020 to supervise its digital presence.
“I used to be ensuring we had been spending our cash properly. Final September [the marketing and communications manager] place got here up and I felt I used to be a pure match with my expertise. No person is aware of about something till we put it on the market. You create impressions by movement, by sound, shaping your presence within the automotive house.”