Fwd: [cacor-climate] further to the topic of owning an EV
Art Hunter
The EV revolution: baby steps and tinkering won’t get us to the podium
Until Elon Musk presents Donald Trump with an all-electric, gilt-coloured Trumpmobile, our auto sector remains at the mercy of a grumpy old man’s prejudices and his fondness for supportive oil billionaires.
CHELSEA, QUE.—The best argument for owning an electric vehicle is owning an EV. They sell themselves.
In fact, they are so superior to gas-powered cars, in so many ways, that they are inevitable. They are flying off the shelves in China; have long dominated new car sales in oil-producing Norway; and are making fast inroads in Europe, Great Britain, South America, Mexico, and the Pacific. Even in this sprawling, northern country, they are the way of the future—although Canada is already late to the game, and, sadly, shows scant signs of hitting the accelerator under the Carney government.
It is such a missed opportunity for our economy, but also for millions of individual consumers who are keenly interested in taking an electric car out for a test drive (many of whom, no doubt, voted Liberal).
No wonder. EVs cost much less to maintain: no carburetors, alternators, oil changes, or belching tailpipes. A routine brake job, suspension adjustments, a new headlight bulb, and you’re good to go. They also cost less to power even when gas prices decline, but especially when they soar (as they curiously do before every important holiday.) Plug the car in at home while you sleep, or, on the road, while you stop for coffee—and you are away, often at a fraction of the cost of a full tank of gas.
As important, to many owners, EVs do not spew the greenhouse gases (GHG) that are driving climate change at an accelerating rate. They are quiet, clean, and efficient.
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The obstacles? Political timidity and an entrenched oil and gas lobby. And, on a micro level, affordability—EVs still cost 30 per cent or more than regular cars—that, coupled with range anxiety. The charging network remains laughably inadequate after a decade of federal funding, periodic happy talk from politicians and missed targets.
As for the fundamental problem: there may not be enough truly affordable models available in Canada for the long queue of interested buyers. And don’t hold your breath. While EV sales fell off the cliff when Trudeau-era rebates ended a year ago (the immense demand overwhelmed the allocated budget), Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recently revised auto strategy is unlikely to change much—certainly not radically.
In response to public demand, and, seemingly grudgingly, Carney re-introduced a limited, targeted $5,000 consumer rebate on the purchase of any EV costing less than $50,000, from any of country with which we have a free trade agreement. That includes Japan, Korea, Europe, Great Britain, and the United States (for now).
There is also a $2,500 refund on plug-in hybrids, which has become increasingly popular. The rebate applies to all electric vehicles made in Canada, regardless of price. (At this moment, that means a break on the high-end $90,000 Dodge Charger Daytona EV, made in Windsor, Ont., so, the wealthy are not forgotten entirely.)
But the bizarre thing about this policy is that the rebate diminishes annually, over the five years it lasts, bottoming out at $2,000 per new EV in 2030 and $1,000 off the price of plug-in hybrid. Unless the $2.3-billion federal funding runs out first, which it did under the $2.9-billion Trudeau plan. Move fast while supplies last, seems to be the message. But supplies aren’t great—nor is there any evident rush by automakers to revive their cheaper EV offerings while U.S. President Donald Trump is still around.
There are, theoretically, 60 or more EV models that meet the rebate criteria according to the government’s list. They date from 2024 to 2027, and cover most popular brands. Whether a car qualifies depends on the “final transaction value,” which excludes winter tires, taxes and freight, but doesn’t cover upgrades. Nor will you necessarily will find what you want outside of major cities; and, whether they will still cost less than $50,000 when you drive them off the lot is an open question. There are no rebates for second-hand EVs, which modest earners could actually afford.
As to the 49,000 Chinese EVs expected in coming months, half of which are supposed to be “affordable,” they won’t be eligible for a rebate because we don’t have a free-trade deal with China. Plus, the Chinese imports—to arrive soon?—only represent three per cent of annual car sales in Canada.
Bottom line: do not expect a tsunami of competitively priced EVs in the aftermath of this limited offer.
The Carney plan also pledges another $1.4-billion investment in charging stations—this for a network that remains laughably inadequate in many places, and barely there outside of urban Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. The latest money is targeted at large, $20-million projects, and is expected to produce 8,000 new chargers, with the co-operation of the stubbornly uninterested private sector. (The belief in a public-spirited corporate sector dies hard with this government.)
After a decade of federal investments in a charging network—an estimated $1.2-billion since 2016—Canada has something more than 30,000 public charging stations, across a vast country, although numbers are hard to pin down. Many don’t work, according to a former auditor general’s report. By some estimates, we will need 447,000 by 2035 to meet demand.
Meanwhile, a Trudeau-era program intended to help finance chargers in condos, apartments, and multi-unit residential buildings runs out of funding next year, and Energy Minister Tim Hodgson is reluctant to say whether it will continue. As Green Party Leader Elizabeth May commented about the government’s overall auto strategy: it’s a “joke.”
It is certainly slow. Every gas station, shopping mall, new condo, highway pit-stop, and big-box outlet should have EV charging ports, jointly financed by municipal/federal/provincial governments and private interests. If ever there was a nation-building, environment-friendly major project, this is it.
Instead, we too often get tokenism over torque.
That said, it is only fair to acknowledge that Carney faces a different auto sector than Justin Trudeau did in 2015. After a short-lived flurry of investment in EVs by the American ‘Big Three’ automakers, provincial and federal governments, and generous rebates for consumers, along came Trump, beholden to his wealthy friends in the oil sector.
That put the brakes not only on the electrification of transportation in North America—the rebates, targets, mandates, the happy owners—but, as of last week, to any attempt to reduce the GHGs spewing from tailpipes. Trump is moving to eradicate the last piece of legislation governing GHG emissions, specifically in the auto sector. And the transport sector is the largest single contributor of emissions in the U.S.; in Canada, cars and trucks are second only to emissions from the oil sands.
What will this latest Trump retreat mean for another element in Carney’s auto strategy: a promise to double tailpipe emission controls, set to kick-in later this year, after consultations? The more stringent regulations, which mimic an initiative in Europe, are meant to drive car manufacturers to finds ways of reducing their overall pollution levels, by including more EVs and plug-in hybrids in their fleets, along with further restricting emissions from gas-powered vehicles.
It is a roundabout way of changing Canada’s vehicle mix to 75 per cent EV, or non-emitting vehicles, by 2035, according to Carney. It is meant to allow automakers more flexibility than the now-abandoned Trudeau-era EV mandates, so despised by the likes of Alberta Premer Danielle Smith and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Other complicated tinkering with tax credits is supposed to encourage Asian carmakers to build their factories here, to fill a gap left by departing U.S. giants. We can only hope this works, but more than 90 cent of cars built in Canada are sold to the U.S. where there is official hostility and a declining market for EVs. Unless we find new markets—another of Carney’s aspirational goals—we could be dragged further backwards, producing only the gas-guzzlers and mall-assault vehicles still favoured by the Big Three, and still profitable.
EVs are not a silver bullet when it comes to the urgent need to reduce GHG emissions (although they are more promising than carbon capture and storage pipe dreams). Nor do they replace investment in improved public transit, from light-rail for cities, to high-speed inter-city train corridors, to electric buses. They all have a place in the green future.
But until Tesla CEO Elon Musk presents Trump with an all-electric, gilt-coloured Trumpmobile, prompting a presidential conversion experience, our auto sector remains at the mercy of a grumpy, avaricious old man’s prejudices and his fondness for supportive, oil company billionaires.
Carney has his eye on the long game, but climate change isn’t waiting. The automotive future is electric—but, in this country, we are still mostly running on fumes.
Susan Riley is a veteran political columnist who writes regularly for The Hill Times.