EV Industry Dev & Sales: Remember These People in Your Strategies
April 15, 2026 By Lori Straus
Ask most people what's slowing down the shift to electric vehicles, and they'll usually point to range anxiety, charging infrastructure, or battery costs. However, after two days at this month’s EV & Charging Expo 2026 in Toronto, I saw a different picture emerging.
Session after session, the conversation kept circling back to the same obstacle: the people and institutions that aren't ready for electrification, but who will be greatly affected by it if it moves forward.
The companies gaining ground in the EV space aren't necessarily the ones with the best technology. They're the ones who showed up prepared to engage with everyone involved in the decision and its outcome. These companies started building those relationships long before their product was ready to deploy.
Don’t Assume Stakeholders Know What You’re Talking About
The observation showed up everywhere, just wearing different clothes.
Jase Zampini, Tesla's Design Lead for Charging Infrastructure, described walking into municipalities that still said, "We don't know what a charging station is,” and yet, Tesla has been building charging stations for over a decade.
In Jase’s experience, each new site could trigger a full review process from scratch and require three to six return visits before the municipality would issue a permit.
What about language? We always talk about carbon footprints, carbon usage, carbon emissions, but do we all use the same definitions?
Ashwati Michael of the City of Toronto discovered the answer was a surprising no. Department after department either defined carbon emissions differently, didn’t know what the term actually meant, or didn’t care. However, her job was to put into place the city’s aggressive carbon reduction strategy.
The First Steps to Clear Communication
Don’t lead with jargon. Instead, assume at least one person in any meeting with your potential client either doesn’t understand environmental terms or uses different definitions. Introduce succinct definitions for the important terms you’re going to use to ensure everyone’s on board.
Understand the System Your Solution Is a Part Of
Anna van der Kamp of Natural Resources Canada framed the national picture clearly. Friction embedded in systems and processes—not technology gaps—is the primary reason Canada's charging rollout is slower than it needs to be.
Systems are run by people, and people need to be on board for change to occur.
This brings us to what Jase called “champions.”
Find Your Supporters First
Jase described Tesla's approach: identifying EV Champions, i.e., supporters within municipalities who already believe in the outcome and can move things forward from the inside.
Jason Scultety of BC Hydro echoed the point, noting that BC Hydro has been cultivating internal supporters for many years.
Champions, evangelists, supporters…different titles, same function. Your potential client wouldn’t be talking to you if they weren’t already experiencing a push from inside to join mobility electrification. Find out where that push came from and ask if that person or those people can join in your meetings. Having supporters on your side from day one can make your sales process easier.
Follow Their Process to the Sticking Point
If your prospects keep stalling, ask whether their hesitation is actually about your product or about their internal capacity to adopt it.
For example, if your prospects nod along in discovery calls but stall in procurement, ask whether your language maps onto theirs. Ashwati’s work in Toronto required standardizing how carbon was defined across departments before any meaningful progress could happen. The same dynamic plays out in boardrooms every day.
Speak to end users, too, where possible. Cris Renna, Director of Transformation at the City of Toronto Fleet Services, said the city started with hybrid pilots, collected operator feedback, measured results, and built confidence before scaling its electric fleet.
As he worked toward carbon reduction in his department, he noted that operators took real pride in knowing how to run their equipment. Therefore, transitioning to something unfamiliar required a genuine investment in proficiency, not just a rollout memo. The same principle applies to any product entering an established workflow.
You’re Selling a Workflow, Not a Product
If you ask drivers who are hesitant to give up their gas-powered vehicle, many will say their top concern is getting stuck somewhere without a charging station. Charging at home should be an obvious convenience, but there are barriers that strike it out:
- A parking lot for hundreds of vehicles may have only four or five chargers.
- Drivers need an app to find a charger in a city or along a rural route.
- A driver’s house may not take another Level 2 plug.
- The advertised range rarely matches real life.
- Unexpected trips can leave you searching for a station on that app instead of reasonably guessing where the next gas station might be. (And it’s probably closer, anyway.)
An EV driver’s workflow to fuel up differs considerably from that of a gas-powered vehicle’s owner. The above problems are more than minor inconveniences, and they also apply to fleets.
If your go-to-market strategy doesn't account for the internal supporters you need to find, the language gaps you need to bridge, and the workflows your customers need to build, your GTM strategy will be more difficult than it needs to be.
At Lori Straus Communications, we can create communications that speak to internal supporters and translate their language to suit those less convinced to help move your ideals for an electrified world forward. Contact us today for your free consultation.
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