/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25774104/8e3eec7bc75f88a1f31bc1578597a51249363207_10000x7500.jpg "Humane wants to put the AI Pin’s software inside your phone, car, and smart speaker")
Toronto has long been searching for a solution to the city’s mounting traffic woes, though one major corporation might have an answer and is reportedly in talks with the City about a “potential new mobility project” to move people through the chaos of Canada’s largest hub,
Representatives from major Canadian auto parts manufacturer Magna International are actively lobbying the City about a new transportation project, and though details are scant, there is a distinct possibility that the company’s SARIT (Safe Affordable Reliable Innovative Transport) micro-car is the topic of discussion.
According to public lobbying files first reported on in Matt Elliott’s City Hall Watcher newsletter, Magna Director of Government Affairs Dex Battista and Product Line Director Chris Hannesson met with senior staff in the City’s Transportation Services division on November 22 to discuss a “potential new mobility project in the Greater Toronto Area.”
At roughly one-quarter the size of a standard car, the all-electric SARIT could be read as either an innovative solution to congestion or, alternatively, just an attempt by an auto manufacturer to sell a bunch more cars to a city that already has a problem managing the existing vehicles on the road.
SARIT broke onto the scene in 2023 with the rollout of a flashy marketing campaign for what it touts as a solution to urban congestion.
SARIT vehicles have already been used in pilot programs at Exhibition Place and York University, and it appears that Magna might be trying to introduce these tiny vehicles as a new band-aid fix to the city’s traffic woes — though the specifics of how that would be rolled out are essentially nonexistent at this time.
At the time of the pilot, Magna noted that these three-wheeled vehicles could be used in the local ridesharing industry, though little other information was provided about what this could look like in practice.
Popular Toronto destination becoming test hub for tiny three-wheeled cars https://t.co/yXNPixC5EF
— blogTO (@blogTO) April 12, 2024
But even if SARIT cars are a means of curbing gridlock, a very public criminal case against the car’s visionary adds quite a bit of baggage to any talks happening behind closed doors.
Magna was founded by 92-year-old Austro-Canadian billionaire and former politician Frank Stronach, who was arrested in June 2024 on 18 separate sex assault allegations spanning from the 1980s to 2023 and, as of early December, is facing two separate trials in relation to the charges.
Stronach has denied all of the allegations and maintains his innocence.
And for better or worse, the innovative little vehicle will always be associated with its embattled founder.
Despite the allegations, the SARIT website still proudly boasts the project as the “brainchild” of the embattled tycoon, hailing him as a “renowned entrepreneur and automotive visionary.”
The SARIT website includes details of a 2023 event where the micro-car project was described as “the revolutionary micro-mobility vehicle by Frank Stronach, founder of Magna and Stronach International.”
blogTO has reached out to SARIT seeking comment on Magna International’s ongoing lobbying efforts with the City of Toronto and the level of Frank Stronach’s continued involvement in the project amid criminal allegations.
