This Matters is pleased to publish episodes of the Toronto Star's podcast, "Road Trip: Electric Avenues," every Saturday. The next episode will be available next week here, or already in the Road Trip feed. This week, we are proud to share episode five:

While China dominates the EV supply chain today, the ranking — put out by Bloomberg — really looks at the future and singles out Canada for having better environmental and labour standards, as well as a robust automotive sector and vast mineral deposits. But battery manufacturing itself is still in its infancy. There are plans to build three battery plants in Canada — Volkswagen in St. Thomas, Northvolt in Saint-Basile-le-Grand and NextStar in Windsor. NextStar was the first battery plant announced and is the furthest along, and while it’s not up and running yet, they agreed to show us around.

Toronto Star photographer Steve Russell and climate change reporter Marco Chown Oved went on a road trip through northern Ontario in the dead of winter. It was cold, blizzarding and icy. They travelled 2,300 km during the coldest week of the year. And they did it in an electric vehicle (EV).