Author: Niel Hiscox

Seven minutes

November 17, 2025

I recently had a truly brilliant seven-minute experience. No, it’s not what you’re thinking. It was charging an EV at a public charging station. And it was brilliant. I’ve spent a good chunk of the past month in the U.K. …

AI fatigue?

August 15, 2025

76061.3663@compuserve.com That odd configuration of numbers was my very first email address — from before email addresses could be personalized with identifiers as wild as our names. The older among you will remember those days. The younger ones will react …

Time to go see for myself

May 22, 2025

I’ve spent almost three decades in the automobile industry. And I’ve never been to the country that has the largest automotive industry on earth, at least in terms of manufacturing. Time for that to change. By the time you read …

Strange and concurrent realities

March 10, 2025

We’ve just come off my favourite weeks in the automotive calendar. The second week of February includes the CADA Summit, media day at the Canadian International AutoShow and VIP night, perhaps the most concentrated networking event of the year. It …

Year-end musings

December 1, 2024

My last publisher’s note of the year. Another year in which it’s been my great pleasure to work in and contribute to this amazing industry. So what’s on my radar at year end? I’m just back from the Los Angeles …

A little bit of, well, a number of things

November 4, 2024

Iattended the Empowering Automotive conference last week in Toronto. Empowering Automotive has the mission to recruit, retain, and grow women and their allies in the auto industry. They seek to accomplish this through the annual flagship conference, mentoring, student outreach, …

It starts and ends with you

October 1, 2024

Yes, the industry is facing a wide range of changes. From ICE to EV, new retail business models, new brands, new technologies shaping (and sometimes threatening) your businesses, the pace of change on all fronts is greater than it’s ever …

Striking a balance

July 29, 2024

I was interviewed by the CBC recently for a story focused on what might seem to be competing goals: On the one hand, protecting domestic automotive manufacturing in Canada; on the other hand, supporting the drive to go green and …

Remembering Ron Porter

June 3, 2024

I received some sad news on May 15. As many of you will now know, Ron E. Porter, former SVP Automotive Finance at Scotiabank died at age 71.  Ron was a true automotive guy. He spent over 30 years at …