Now that the Automotive Components Producers’ Affiliation’s Undertaking Arrow has seemingly hit its mark, the group may quickly purpose for one thing larger than only one drivable prototype automobile.

Whereas showcasing the all-Canadian, absolutely electrical crossover with Stage 3 autonomy in Windsor, Ont., on June 5, the affiliation’s president instructed there’s far more to return.

“There’s an growing stress, a optimistic stress, to return ahead with 2.0,” Flavio Volpe mentioned. “Undertaking Arrow 2.0 will very doubtless be an expanded characteristic of producing applied sciences which are completely Canadian, an illustration of charging and linked applied sciences and clever infrastructure.

“That’s so much larger than one automobile’s footprint and so much larger than a $20-million funding.

Possibly the subsequent automobile — and I put an asterisk beside that — goes to assist to attract consideration to all these different enabling applied sciences which are going to get us just a little additional down the street to the loopy EV mandates that the federal authorities has adopted.”

Ottawa’s proposed ZEV laws would require zero-emissions automobiles to make up 60 per cent of new-vehicle gross sales in Canada by 2030 and 100 per cent of gross sales by 2035.

The APMA debuted the automobile in January at CES in Las Vegas.

The automobile options parts from 58 Canadian suppliers, from Quebec wheel producer Fastco Canada, to software program provider Ettractive of Windsor, Ont.

The a number of dozen suppliers to see their merchandise on the ultimate idea automobile come from a pool of 534 firms that initially expressed their curiosity in collaborating in Undertaking Arrow. Of these, 230 made a brief listing earlier than the ultimate minimize.

Volpe beforehand mentioned the drivable prototype is designed to “inform the Canadian story,” in addition to drum up new enterprise for Canadian suppliers because the auto business transitions to electrical and autonomous automobiles.

Volpe mentioned 14 automakers at the moment are in “excellent discussions” with numerous suppliers of the automobile. 

The purpose is to win $500 million value of recent enterprise and Volpe mentioned he “couldn’t be happier” with how the worldwide gross sales pitch goes.

“It’s a giant success,” he mentioned.

When requested if the APMA has obtained any provides to mass produce the automobile, Volpe smiled and mentioned there have been “too many.”

“I don’t know in the event that they have been automakers, however they have been individuals with cellular capital. However their supply was off by a zero,” he mentioned.