'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
Daimler AG's luxury car brand Mercedes-Benz says it is stepping up its transition to electric cars, doubling the share of sales planned by 2025 and sketching out a market scenario in which new car sales would "in essence" be fully electric by the end of the decade.
The shift to electric vehicles "is picking up speed -- especially in the luxury segment, where Mercedes-Benz belongs," said Ola Kallenius, CEO of Daimler AG and also head of the Mercedes-Benz division. "The tipping point is getting closer and we will be ready as markets switch to electric-only by the end of this decade."
The company plans to invest 40 billion euros (US$47 billion) in battery-driven vehicles between 2022 and 2080. It says it also intends to work with partners on setting up eight factories producing battery cells -- the individual components that are assembled into larger battery packs in different vehicles.
The company said Thursday it foresaw half its sales as battery-only or plug-in hybrid cars by 2025, up from a quarter in previous forecasts. In the first six months of this year, such vehicles were 10.3% percent of total sales. The company sold 39,000 battery cars and 121,500 plug-in hybrids, which combine a battery with internal combustion.
The company's statement updating its electric-vehicle strategy portrayed going all-electric as a "market scenario" the company intended to be ready for, rather than as a fixed deadline for abandoning sales of diesel or gasoline cars. The company said it was "getting ready to go electric by the end of the decade, where market conditions allow."
In Europe, the share of electric cars is increasing, heavily driven by regulation and government incentives. Last year, electrically chargeable cars made up 10.5% percent of the European market.
Mercedes said Thursday that from 2025 all newly launched vehicle architectures would be electric only, referring to mechanical structures that can be shared among different models.
The company has said that its model lineup will be climate neutral by 2039 throughout its chain of production, but had not specified any date for halting sales of internal combustion engines. For now, sales of highly profitable gasoline and diesel sedans and SUVs are providing the cash to invest in the changeover to electric cars.
Other carmakers including Volkswagen's Audi, General Motors and Volvo have also indicated they are moving away from gasoline and diesel engines over the long term.
The new Mercedes electric strategy follows proposals from the European Union's executive commission to tighten limits on carbon dioxide emissions, the primary greenhouse gas blamed by scientists for global warming and climate change. The latest proposal envisions eliminating C02 emissions from cars by 2035. China is also imposing regulations requiring more zero-local emission cars, while the shift to electric cars has moved more slowly in the United States.
"We applaud the high ambition" in the EU climate proposals, chief executive Kallenius said, adding that they would help bring about "a new era of CO2-free living, and we are going to do our part."
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Dakota Joshua had a goal and two assists and the Vancouver Canucks scored three third-period goals to claw out a 5-4 comeback victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series Wednesday.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.