Latest news with #APMA
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Travel + Leisure
28-05-2025
- Health
- Travel + Leisure
Podiatrists Love These Best-selling Hoka Sneakers—and They're Secretly on Sale Right Now
As someone with flat feet, I've spent years chasing the right pair of comfortable shoes—ones that don't leave me with shin splints after a jog or sore arches after a day of sightseeing. Hoka has long been my go-to for sneakers that are equal parts supportive and stylish, and now one of the brand's best-sellers, the Hoka Clifton 9 sneakers, are up to 35 percent off at Zappos in nine colorways. This ninth iteration of Hoka's beloved Clifton line is lighter, bouncier, and more cushioned than ever before. Designers trimmed excess weight while increasing the stack height by three millimeters, giving you more softness underfoot without compromising speed. Whether you're training for a race or tackling a cobblestone European road on foot, the Clifton 9s provide a plush yet responsive ride that adapts to every step. $145 $117 at REI $145 $116 at Zappos Made with a breathable and flexible upper, the shoes help keep your feet cool and dry, even during long travel days or humid runs. Underneath, a compression-molded EVA foam midsole adds that signature Hoka cushioning, often compared to walking on a memory foam mattress. Even better, the Clifton 9s are built with a gusseted tongue to keep out moisture and debris—a small but key detail for outdoor adventures. These shoes don't just feel good—they come with a stamp of approval from professionals. The American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) awarded them the Seal of Acceptance for promoting foot health. They're also a favorite among nurses, runners, and those recovering from injuries. $145 $117 at REI $145 $116 at Zappos Jihan Brueggemann, a registered nurse who is on her feet all day, also recommends these shoes. 'These are my ultimate favorite because they offer more stability and ankle support, she previously told Travel + Leisure . 'I also love how they feel like I am walking on air.' One Zappos shopper, who was referred to the Clifton 9s by their orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon, said, 'It's taken me 13 years to find the right shoes after going through eight foot surgeries. These are all I can wear.' Another shopper, also a nurse, praised the supportive sole and shared that several colleagues swear by the same pair. Whether you're heading out for a jog in Central Park, packing light for a summer trip, or just want everyday walking shoes that don't leave your feet aching, the Clifton 9s tick all the boxes. The sale has already started, and sizes are flying off the shelves, so if you've been thinking about upgrading your footwear, now's the time. And if you're on the hunt for more travel-friendly, comfortable sneakers, we've rounded up even more deals at Zappos you won't want to miss. Love a great deal? Sign up for our T+L Recommends newsletter and we'll send you our favorite travel products each week.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Terence Corcoran: Is a plan to build an all-Canadian EV the key to our auto industry's future?
With no federal budget in sight there is no way of knowing which of the Liberal government's grand economic platform strategies and major government interventions are still on Prime Minister Mark Carney's must-do list. The only item on the official agenda at the moment is a July 1 reduction in the middle-class tax rate from 15 to 14 per cent, a move that will cost the government about $5 billion this year and raise the 2025-26 deficit closer to $50 billion. The deficit could soar in coming months and years, depending on the trajectory of global economic conditions and on whether Carney appears at his desk in the PMO to sign other pre-budget spending orders. On reflection, maybe it's a good thing that the government has decided to postpone budget delivery until the fall. While it would be useful to have an accurate federal fiscal outlook today, the last thing we need now is one of Ottawa's ritual 500-page tax, borrow and spend extravaganzas. Canadians can be grateful that as the United States charges uncertainly into a probable fiscal mess, Canada can drift through the summer giving careful second thought to some of the Liberal expansions of federal spending. Do we really need and want a $5-billion 'trade diversifications corridors fund' or a $3-billion annual Build Canada Homes plan, or a $2-billion plan to build an 'auto industry strategic response fund' as part of a plan to 'leverage government funding to prioritize and procure Canadian-built vehicles, catalyzing domestic investment to grow the Canadian auto industry.' The Canadian auto industry dreamscape is a big one that should be subjected to careful study before adding new initiatives to a national industrial strategy that is already off the road. As recent announcements from major auto companies (Honda, Stellantis) indicate, the global auto market is in a state of dramatic upheaval and Canada is in no position to be investing the dozens of billions already committed to a market filled with uncertainty. Some say Canada needs a dramatic shift in its national approach to the transitioning global auto industry, one that involves creating a Canadian-owned model to produce new made-in-Canada automobiles. One of the leaders of the make-it-in-Canada movement is Flavio Volpe, head of Canada's Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association (APMA). For more than half a decade, the APMA under Volpe has been working on Project Arrow, a model of a potential fully Canadian EV designed and manufactured in Canada. Volpe told the National Observer earlier this month that it is time 'for a big rethink of the auto sector canon. We can't continue to think conventionally.' With Project Arrow, he added, 'Canada shows it has the technology and the people to do an 'all-Canadian' car.' Volpe said the Arrow is a 'platform and showcase' that contains 25 Canadian EV technologies, innovative drivetrains, 3D-printed chassis and state-of-the-art navigation systems. Whether the Arrow lives up to all the hype from APMA's 400 parts manufacturers is open to question. Federal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne has in the past supported the Arrow. Speaking as innovation minister prior to a 2023 Arrow promo tour to Las Vegas, Champagne said, 'Project Arrow is a shining example of what Canadian talent can accomplish. We have all the technical know-how and people required to do this successfully.' Terence Corcoran: Why BE$$ may not be the best electricity plan Terence Corcoran: Elbows up for a trade deal by anti-free-traders So far, however, the Arrow lacks momentum and faces major competitive realities. The target market price of an Arrow is said to be C$35,000, low by current EV standards in Canada but not by Made-in-China standards, where prices run to C$20,000 or lower. Would Canada continue to need 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese autos? Which is one reason Volpe told the Globe and Mail earlier this week that he would like Ottawa, the provinces and industry to modestly fund a 'feasibility study' into the possibility of getting a Canadian-owned EV manufacturing operation up and running. Such a study, he said, would cost somewhere between $5 million and $20 million. OK. Good idea. Let's do a $20-million study before we bring in a budget with a multibillion-dollar plan to create a new Canadian auto company. We should do that more often.
Globe and Mail
21-05-2025
- Automotive
- Globe and Mail
Is it time to finally take the dream of a Canadian automaker seriously? Flavio Volpe makes his case
As Prime Minister Mark Carney casts about for nation-building projects, the most prominent representative of Canada's auto sector has one in mind for him. Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association (APMA) president Flavio Volpe, who advocates on behalf of hundreds of domestic companies that supply components to global automakers, thinks it's time for this country to seriously consider launching an automaker of its own. It's an idea that has been idly kicking around the industry, with only a few marginal failed attempts to show for it, through many decades of Canada boasting only foreign-owned assembly plants for passenger vehicles. But over the course of a lengthy interview, Mr. Volpe framed the crisis of U.S. President Donald Trump's trade wars – which has contributed to international carmakers slowing production, laying off workers and pausing investments at Ontario sites – as an opportunity. It's a chance to move past a branch-plant mentality and potentially reap long-term benefits from a Canadian-headquartered company, Mr. Volpe said. 'We are very likely to make peace with the Americans,' he said. 'But we should never go back to trusting that peace. We should never go back to the thing that I think people across the spectrum in this country criticize Canada for, which is lack of national ambition.' Building up a Canadian carmaker, he contended, would ensure that the country maintained broader manufacturing capacity that's important for its economic sovereignty. That's because of infrastructure that can be leveraged toward other products as well. At the same time, he said, it could boost domestic innovation and productivity. 'An automaker's headquarters does things that automaker operations can't do. Decision making, research and innovation, and engineering hubs cluster around it.' Mr. Volpe's pitch for a Canadian automaker flows somewhat from Project Arrow – a successful APMA-led effort to build a prototype electric vehicle made entirely of Canadian-made parts – although he stressed that he is not suggesting that particular model be commercialized. Nor, he said, is he calling for Mr. Carney's government to immediately launch some sort of publicly owned company. What he wants, he said, is for Ottawa – in partnership with industry, and with the provincial governments of Ontario and probably Quebec – to launch a feasibility study into what it would take to get a Canadian automaker off the ground and what form it could take. It would cost somewhere between about $5-million and $20-million to pull in the best and brightest from across the sector to thoroughly explore the prospect, he assessed, and in the process hopefully validate the concept and build momentum to attract potential private investors or proponents. Based on Globe and Mail interviews with others around the industry, the exploratory exercise would not lack for willing participants, after weeks of quiet canvassing by Mr. Volpe. That includes Unifor, the union representing Canadian autoworkers, whose president, Lana Payne, said a domestic automaker can no longer be dismissed out of hand amid shifting international trade relationships. Echoing a point emphasized by Mr. Volpe, Ms. Payne noted that several other countries that have previously only been automotive branch plants – including Mexico – are currently in the midst of trying to launch their own companies, and that Canada risks being an outlier if it doesn't seriously consider it. Dennis Darby, the president of the broader industry association, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, was slightly more skeptical but remains open-minded: 'The devil will be in the details,' he said, 'but it's certainly worth looking at.' At the same time, the prospect prompts eye-rolling from some veteran industry insiders, who tend to point toward fleeting and failed past attempts (most famously the Bricklin SV-1 sportscar, out of New Brunswick in the 1980s), lack of patient capital and problems of scale for a relatively small country. 'It's just not practical,' summarized Greig Mordue, a McMaster University chair in advanced manufacturing policy and former Toyota Canada executive. Mr. Volpe was ready to push back on some of those criticisms. For one thing, he said, the automaker he's loosely envisioning would be an industry-wide collaboration, drawing off more than enough core competencies in the country's industrial heartland to produce appealing vehicles – a far cry from the small startups attempted previously. For another, the industry is in enough flux globally, including through the transition to electric vehicles, to allow more room for new entrants. At the same time, it was clear – both from his pitch, and from the disparate reactions to it – that there are a couple of big, overarching questions that the feasibility study might usefully address. The first is around the potential market, and how a Canadian carmaker could reach enough of it to be viable, which would ultimately require selling hundreds of thousands of vehicles each year. The vast majority of vehicles assembled in Canada have long been exported to the U.S., which would presumably not be the aim given the circumstances under which this effort would be launched. That means figuring out how much of the Canadian market (with new vehicle sales a little under two million annually, currently consisting mostly of a wide variety of foreign-assembled cars) a Canadian company could reach, and whether it could also find overseas takers. The domestic reach could be helped a little by the fact that assembly platforms for EVs – which are what a new company would likeliest be producing – are more flexible than for gasoline-fuelled cars. In other words, it could be possible to make multiple models to suit different consumer tastes, more easily than previously. Still, all sorts of unknowns would need to be addressed, from whether there are enough niches to realistically be filled, to how exactly the infrastructure to get the vehicles to consumers (including dealership networks) would be set up. The other, even less settled question is around who would own it. Mr. Volpe expressed openness to some degree of government ownership – whether that meant launching and then selling it, or holding shares. He argued that such structures are already explicit in some countries (such as state-level government in Germany holding equity in Volkswagen Group) or effectively the case in others where governments have repeatedly intervened to prop up automakers when they've struggled. He also mentioned other potential proprietors or investors – from Canadian parts-making giants (Magna International being the most obvious example), to pension funds, to individual entrepreneurs. The feasibility study, he said, could help determine whether certain tax measures or other incentives could attract that sort of capital. And, he suggested, it could also take the measure of other options short of starting a company altogether from scratch, such as partnering with or even acquiring a distressed foreign automaker. Or maybe, Mr. Volpe acknowledged, the exercise would conclude that there simply wasn't a viable pathway – an outcome he said he'd be fine with. But perhaps his least contentious point is that if Canadian governments could commit billions of dollars in recent years to subsidizing foreign companies' EV and battery investments here – investments he supported – then it's not too much to ask that they invest a small fraction of that to explore more homegrown possibilities. 'The Prime Minister challenged the country to be more ambitious,' Mr. Volpe said. 'Well, in the automotive space, there could be nothing more ambitious than to launch a carmaker.'
CTV News
09-05-2025
- Automotive
- CTV News
Future of Canada's auto sector
In her Need to Know segment, Amanda Lang looks at the history of Canada's auto sector. She then speaks with Flavio Volpe, President of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, for a discussion of the best path forward for Canada's auto industry. Finally … vehicle makers appear to be making decisions based on assumptions about the future - and that looks like a smaller production footprint in Canada. Amanda talks it over with Brian Kingston, President & CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association.
National Observer
09-05-2025
- Automotive
- National Observer
Arrow reborn: an all-Canadian EV aims to revolutionize industry
Turns out $20 million could be a good price for a new EV. If that car is the Project Arrow prototype — an all-Canadian electric vehicle dreamt up by an auto industry body that has already drummed up $500 million in contracts for the companies which contributed their technologies, that is. The EV concept, named after the avant-garde but controversial Canadian-built Avro Arrow supersonic fighter jet cancelled in 1959, has been logging thousands of air miles of its own since its launch in 2020. The distinctive gun-metal grey design was on display at Canada's pavillion at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, UAE, and has been in the spotlight at industry exhibitions around the world. International interest in the eye-catching EV model has already translated into half a billion dollars in deals for the 25 home-grown startups that delivered technologies for the prototype, ranging from an innovative electric drive-train through a 3D-printed chassis to a state-of-the-art navigation system. For Flavio Volpe, who as head of Canada's Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association (APMA) spearheaded development of the project, the enthusiasm and deal-making are a vindication of the 'true value for money' of the EV concept, which raised $12 million from the Canadian auto sector and received $8 million in government backing to build the prototype. 'This is not about prototyping a design for mass production. These are designed to be a platform and showcase,' he stated, speaking with Canada's National Observer. 'So $20 million is a lot for a car, but not when you think about it in terms of what it can generate for the Canadian auto sector, for the Canadian economy.' 'Things are changing very rapidly. This is an occasion for a big rethink of the auto sector canon. We can't continue to think conventionally." APMA's Flavio Volpe 'With Project Arrow, Canada shows it has the technology and the people to do an 'all-Canadian' car,' said Volpe. An industrial net-zero call-to-arms The spark of conception for the Arrow came five years ago during the federal throne speech, which included a government call-to-arms to all in industry to imagine what their sectors 'could look like in a net-zero future.' Volpe took the question to representatives from APMA's 400-plus parts-supplier members with the challenge of designing and building a new EV. The car that took shape had 'innovation' as its watchword. The Arrow design came from a team at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ont., and 'every last part' came from one of more than 60 Canadian suppliers. This included power train engineers Narmco, software developers Ettractive and YQG Technologies, injection moulding specialist Papp Plastics, and cybersecurity outfit Vehiqilla. The prototype was assembled by Ontario Tech University, in Oshawa, Ont. 'We are saying: 'If a [car-maker] is interested in the Arrow's navigation system or the power-train — or the steering wheel, seats or door handles, here are the companies to buy from,'' said Volpe, who also sits on the Prime Minister's Council on Canada-US Relations. Progress on the project was given a major boost last November when APMA secured a further $11 million to build the first dozen 'Arrow 2.0s,' demonstrator models that could be used as virtual kit-cars by any automaker looking to start manufacturing an all-Canadian EV. 'Through Project Arrow [the Canadian auto sector] will prove that we can land on the moon. But it is not for APMA to colonize it,' said Volpe, noting he has had many requests to launch a car company off the back of the prototype. Still, the idea is tempting. Particularly given that Canada's vaunted $100 billion EV ecosystem strategy has been misfiring in the last year due to a slow-down in electric car and truck demand growth and the impact of the 'uncertainty shock' to the auto sector from the imposition of US tariffs. An EV designed and built in Canada with exclusively Canadian parts and technology will have a domestic market eventually, Volpe said, whatever US President Donald Trump's 'ambitions' or the industrial vagaries of the transition from internal combustion engines to electric drive-trains. Statista, a data provider, forecast Canada's EV market to reach over $11.5 billion in 2025 and grow almost 10 per cent a year to $17 billion by 2029, by which time almost 250,000 EVs will be on Canadian roads. 'The technologies being delivered by our member companies are going to drive down the cost of vehicles. If we are going to compete with the Chinese, we have to invest in these product innovations and also in the process and technologies to manufacture these EVs,' he added. 'Things are changing very rapidly. This is an occasion for a big rethink of the auto sector canon. We can't continue to think conventionally,' Volpe said of the transition to EVs, adding: 'If I launched a car today, it wouldn't combust anything. It would be electric.' On the road 'for $35,000' By APMA figuring, a compact SUV model Arrow could roll off a Canadian assembly line by 2029 with a sticker price of $35,000, he added, ready to be one of the two million cars sold each year in Canada. Development of the next-generation Arrow is going to test the design for ultra-harsh Canadian winter conditions, with Ontario Tech set to put the car through its paces in the university's climatic aerodynamic wind tunnel, which can simulate Arctic blizzards and 'extreme weather events.' Like the prototype, the Arrow 2.0 is retaining its identity as a 'lighthouse for the sector but a showcase for our suppliers' technologies,' said Volpe. But he feels the spirit of the project needs to continue reflecting its namesake, the Avro Arrow, developed in response to the 'existential threat' of Russian bombers flying over the Arctic Circle to attack Canada and the US. 'We built a Canadian jet from a 'clean sheet' that could fly twice as fast and fly twice as high as anything out there in the '50s. We couldn't think conventionally to do this.' The American economic attack on Canada with tariffs could be seen as comparable, Volpe said, given the damage that might be done to our national security and sovereignty, and provides government and industry with the opportunity to reposition the auto sector 'to play to our existing strengths.' 'We have a world-class auto manufacturing cluster in southwestern Ontario, we have a strong advanced technology cluster — software and hardware — we have steel and aluminum, and we have critical minerals for energy-dense EV batteries. And then there is AI and machine learning, which Canadians pioneered.' Through Project Arrow, Canada now also has its own EV prototype. And Volpe adds APMA is happy to hand over the 'five years of homework done for this project to anybody who wants to take a shot at it.'
