A U.S.-based electric-vehicle startup plans to import competitively priced EVs from China into Canada and build a final-assembly plant in North America, but it could face an uphill battle as an inexperienced rival to established automakers.
The SEV, a battery-electric compact crossover, is Imperium Motors’ first passenger vehicle and is expected to be delivered to customers by February, said Christian Dubois, president of Imperium Motors Canada.
The SEV, which is available to reserve for Cdn $100 through Imperium’s website, is built in China by Skyworth and is sold in that market as the ET5.
Imperium plans to import these vehicles into the United States and Canada, rebadge them as Imperium products and distribute them through a network of retail storefronts, said Dubois.
“The [SEV] is nearly homologated,” he said. “It’s in the U.S. right now getting final approval. From there, we’ll be able to import the vehicle. So, we’re very close to that for the U.S., and we’re simultaneously filling out the paperwork for the Canadian marketplace.”
While Imperium faces an “uphill battle” against established automakers such as Tesla, Volkswagen and General Motors, its approach has benefits, said Mike Vousden, an automotive analyst at GlobalData, a Londonbased data analytics company.
“Chinese [automakers] have taken a commanding lead in the field of affordable electric vehicles — which, thanks to lower labour and raw-material costs, undercut competitors from Europe, Asia and North America,” Vousden said. “This means the Skyworth/Imperium [crossover] could go on sale at a price point that undercuts its main rivals ... [and] carve out a handy slice of Canada’s market.”
Imperium has signed on two Quebec retailers — Mario Bourbonnais, partner at Montreal-based Groupe Leclair, and Luc Beaudoin, who owns Ste-Foy Nissan and Beauport Nissan in Quebec City — to operate the company’s first retail locations in Canada, said Dubois. Both locations are standalone and set to open in January.
Imperium is working on opening a third store in the province and plans to eventually expand its retail footprint into British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta, he said.
PRICE ADVANTAGE
Dubois said the SEV’s pricing, which starts at $40,065 including a $2,070 shipping charge, will help court Canadian buyers.
“It’s going to compete with other electric crossovers,” he said. “But unlike the [VW] ID4 or the [Ford Mustang] Mach-E, we’re going to be priced below the [Chevrolet] Bolt EV.”
According to the Chevrolet online configurator, however, the Bolt starts at a slightly lower $39,998 including $1,800 shipping. The pre-shippingcharge base price for the SEV is $37,995 versus $38,198 for the Bolt.
“In some provinces and with the federal incentive, that will bring the car [SEV] in line with internal-combustion-engine vehicles.”
A $40,065 vehicle in Quebec — with an $8,000 provincial rebate plus $5,000 federal — will have a net price near $27,000 which is in line with the Honda CR-V, Nissan Rogue and Toyota RAV4 crossovers, he said.
Although the SEV will face a 6.1-per-cent import tariff when it enters Canada, Imperium will still be able to price the compact crossover competitively and turn a profit, Dubois said.
Quebec and British Columbia will likely generate the majority of sales, Dubois said. Imperium expects to receive about 1,500 units of the SEV from China for the Canadian market.
“It’s quite easy to identify which markets will be the largest for us, and it’s a combination of population, adoption and [incentive] programs,” Dubois said. “If we look at the federal incentive distribution in Canada since the inception of the program, you see that almost 45 per cent of all vehicles that qualified for rebates are being sold in Quebec.”
While the first Imperium vehicle will be a rebadged Skyworth, the company treats Skyworth as a supplier and is open to selling rebadged EVs from other automakers.
Imperium’s second product will be an electric pickup called the Terra-E, which is based on the Terralord, an existing internal-combustion-engine truck sold in China. Imperium plans to ship the truck bodies to North America where it will install a battery and electric drivetrain and complete final assembly on the vehicles before distributing them to dealers in the United States and Canada.
Imperium looks to complete final assembly on the Terra-E bodies at a plant in Canada, said Rick Curtis, CEO of Nevada-based Imperium Motor Co.
CANADA HAS ITS BENEFITS
Assembling vehicles in Canada could offer cost advantages, Curtis said. “The tariff situation in Canada is much, much more advantageous,” he said, citing the U.S. 25-per-cent import duty on pickups assembled overseas.
“It makes a lot more sense to build it up in Canada, and that I think is where we’re going to end up doing that particular truck.”
Imperium might purchase an existing plant in the Vancouver area, which provides logistics advantages when receiving bodies from China, Dubois said. The company will seek government assistance once it has finalized decisions about the plant, expected to be between 100,000 and 150,000 square feet (9,000 and 14,000 square metres).
“Definitely once we come closer to the decisions, we’ll be moving forward with possible grants from provincial and federal entities,” he said.
GOLF CART ROOTS
Imperium, established in 2019, is the automotive arm of Surrey, B.C.based DSG Global. The publicly traded company, which has its roots in the golf industry, sells fleet management and tracking software for golf carts through its Vantage Tag Systems business, used by about 300 golf courses worldwide.
Curtis said the idea to break into the EV space came after DSG Global began importing inexpensive, lowspeed EVs from China last year as an alternative to traditional golf carts.
Imperium and its parent are entering a highly competitive market in which they have essentially no experience, said GlobalData’s Vousden. “That could leave them vulnerable to expensive slip-ups early on that have the potential to scupper the business plan,” he said.
As well, the timeline to offer the SEV in early 2022 “seems ambitious.” Curtis said the company has the “financing in place” to make the jump from golf carts to passenger vehicles, though he declined to provide details.
“The really good thing about us is, if you look at the history of manufacturing a vehicle from start to finish, some of these manufacturers can spend hundreds of millions to a billion dollars or more to develop a car,” he added. “We didn’t have to spend much of anything. We’ve found some great products out there that have done all the hard lifting.”
