this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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144
Prime Minister Mark Carney is under intense pressure from the United States and Car Companies to make an electric vehicle U-turn. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by Davriellelouna@lemmy.world to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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According to Politico, Mark Carney is under intense pressure.

Auto Manufacturers want to get rid of the electric vehicle mandate. They simply refuse to sell more small electric cars in Canada, claiming it's impossible / unprofitable.

They also say Donald Trump is now President of the United States. Climate Change is no longer an american concern. The political climate in the United States has changed and Canada should follow the US, whether it likes or not.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/10/canada-ev-mandate-elon-musk-tesla-00446980

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[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 36 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

EVs are a halfway solution anyway. We need to be investing in mass transit. If every car turned into an EV, we would still have politicians like Doug Ford trying to tunnel under a highway to end gridlock, we would still have motorists claiming bikes cause congestion, we would still be creating tonnes of tire waste and microplastics pollution, people will continue to die on roads while accidents could get worse due to extra weight, and our roads will wear down faster and cost more to maintain due to the extra weight.

In the grand scheme of things, EVs solve almost none of the major problems presented by cars.

[–] wirebeads@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is about the most accurate answer I’ve read on here in a long time.

EVs and other electrified vehicles are good and all, but saving the climate comes down to building proper infrastructure not designed around cars, that gets the populace from A to B efficiently.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm not exactly anti EV. If a car must exist it might as well be electric, but just converting every car into an EV is not enough. Plus there are other massive benefits to transit like increasing density and diversity in zoning, which could increase housing supply and make small businesses more versatile and resilent.

Transit is also much cheaper than car ownership which lifts low income people up by reducing their transportation costs. Its also more fair, a 14 year old, a blind person, or someone with a suspended lisence could all take transit when none of them should be driving.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

If a car must exist it might as well be electric,

That's an important bit of nuance.

Even if every province and city were to go all-in on prioritizing public transit over new car-focused infrastructure, we are decades away from transit being available at a scale to everyone who needs it. EVs are a practical interim solution.

And there will always be practical reasons for individual vehicles (contractors, service vehicles, delivery vehicles, rural places, etc) where public transit is not realistic, and those vehicles really need to move to EV.

[–] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Well put, cities and transportation should be designed for all ages of people and easy to get around.

All to often people forget when you get older you will loose access to a car. This leave with with limited options in how to leave your home. Similarly if you are young, you don't have access to a car and are at the whims of mom and dad driving you around.

Cars either electric or ICE are not what we should design cities around. We need transit, and cities that allow independence at all age groups.

I have seen to many older folks complaining about independence and feeling like they lost it especially when they get too old to drive.

[–] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago

Just one more highway, finished 15 years from now, will solve traffic!

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

EVs should replace cars that need to be replaced, let's not re-create the ecological disaster that was "cash 4 junkers".

And yes, they should go alongside a large reduction in total vehicles on the road using practical, fast, accessible, clean (as in maintained) electric and cheap public transit subsidized mostly by car owners and in small part by other taxes.

Let's reduce traffic and traffic violence by reducing the total number of vehicles from the road, making driver's ed more complete and stricter, and gently discouraging people in high-density, transit-friendly cities from owning personal vehicles.

We will also see the costs of road maintenance go down, unused lanes that can be reclaimed, and less asphalt to absorb heat and keep the earth from draining properly, all while keeping the remaining car traffic relatively efficient, with less idling and faster time to destination while requiring lower speeds, which EVs excel at.

Sorry, I've ranted all over this thread, but I feel very strongly about a balanced and supported approach to mass transit, car dependence reduction and picking the right usage model (car pool, car share, rental, ownership) and car size for your needs.

[–] leastaction@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

We need to be investing in electric mass transit. Powered by renewables.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Even disiel electric is much better than private automobiles we should start by building electric but any transit is better than none. We need to prioritize laying tram and train tracks. Once those are laid we can easily upgrade to electric.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Mass transit is great for cities and that’s it right now. If you live in an area with less than 500,000 people mass transit isn’t happening for awhile. EVs give us clean powered vehicles for the interim which - optimistically - will still be 20-30 years.

Stopping EVs now is a bad idea. Use them to leverage electric renewable infrastucture.

For cities, though, yeah minimal cars is better.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Somewhere with 500,000 people can definitely make use of transit. Maybe not mass but definitely trams, buses and regional rail. Also active infrastructure like bike lanes (granted provinces seem to be at war with cyclists recently).

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 day ago

Sounds like someone wants to lose their sales to BYD and Europe.

[–] SirMaple__@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"The political climate in the United States has changed and Canada must follow the US, whether it likes or not."

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[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 2 points 17 hours ago

The guy next door totaled his car you should too!

[–] leastaction@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 day ago

There's a lot of words missing in in the first statement. Shareholders in American auto manufacturers other than Tesla want to get rid of the electric vehicle mandate. Also note that elsewhere in the world internal combustion cars are losing ground to electric vehicles. Do we really want to attach ourselves to this sinking ship?

[–] Ulrich_the_Old@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I have seen a few small electric vehicles reviewed on youtube. I am in Canada and would buy one today if available. 99 % of my travel is less than 2km to the grocer. I put on well under 10,000km/yr.

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I don't see it being viable for me as my car sits in front of my house most of the time (love the walkable neighbourhood) and then suddenly makes a 700 km trip once a month, and I can't charge it at home, and the charging options are ass at my destination, and there's exactly one fast charger on the route. The constant fast charging would also hammer my battery like crazy, and I total roughly 25,000 km in a year. To top it all off, the station wagon / practical sedan / large hatchback EV offering is very slim, and I really hated the "sitting on a skateboard" feel of the IONIQ 6, it made my legs ache.

But I'm a perfect storm. For someone who does not go far often and can charge at home (that happens to be the vast majority of people who need a car), EVs are basically perfect. Just rent a car or take a plane the few times you need to go out of range from a charger, or just plan for charging.

What I want for myself is a plug-in hybrid, but they're kinda rare, expensive, make little sense for most people and aren't really available in a sedan / wagon form factor.

I love EVs, I like driving them, and I think they would go great with a general reduction of total vehicles on the road (i.e. more effective public transit), more right to repair and less telemetry.

Addendum - My case sounds like it would be perfect for using car sharing like Communauto, but they're really expensive for my use case, and tracking one down has been such a complete pain in the past that the extra cost of maintaining my own vehicle was worth it for the ability to be able to up and leave for work at a moment's notice wherever I'm needed. I remember having to travel an hour into town to get to my Communauto rental, just to discover it's in limp mode, it's trashed, etc. They're much better nowadays, but my pandemic then-new-car is now mostly paid off.

[–] Yaztromo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The constant fast charging would also hammer my battery like crazy, and I total roughly 25,000 km in a year.

If you’re doing a 700km trip once a month, and if we assume you need to charge back up four times — that’s 4 full charge cycles per month, or 48 per year.

A typical EV battery is rated for 1000 to 2000 charge cycles. With an average range of roughly 450km per charge for many modern EVs, and assuming the lower bound of 1000 cycles, you’ll need to put 450 000 km on your vehicle before you have to worry much about battery degradation. Based on your own 25 000 km/year estimate, that’s 18 years of ownership.

Or if we look at it based on charge cycles per month (which we’ll round up to 6 to accommodate for other driving outside your 700km trip once a month), that’s 72 full cycles per year, which won’t get up to 1000 total cycles for nearly 14 years.

Considering the average ICE vehicle in Canada only lasts 10 to 12 years, you’re going to do way better in an EV than you would with ICE. Battery degradation for EVs is VASTLY overstated — estimates of modern EV batteries from the last few years is they should be able to get 1 million miles out of them — the rest of the car is likely to fall apart before the battery fails.

Now the lack of suitable charging infrastructure on your route is a real (and valid!) problem, and we can only hope that situation gets better for everyone (here in BC, BC Hydro has been building out fast charger infrastructure every 150km along all highways throughout the Province, so road trips here are NOT a big issue. I’m on such a trip now incidentally!). But myths about battery life, especially coming from EV enthusiasts has to die.

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You bring good points! My concern about battery life is more specifically about the toll fast charging puts on a battery, and such a car would be supercharging for most of its existence.

I did rent out a dual motor long range IONIQ 5 for a test trip, I really enjoyed it, but I was stuck for an hour at a fast charger at a random closed Ford dealership off the side of the 20 on the way back because I couldn't charge at my destination in Levis during the day.

I also had a LOT of issues with Electrify Canada and Flo, from non-functional stations to stations where the sessions just wouldn't end. It happened twice, and the second time it happened, it took support (I forget which company, I think Flo) a whole WEEK to close the charging session properly. During that time, I could not open any other charge session, and had to call support every time I wanted to charge. 🙃

Otherwise, Quebec's charging infrastructure is okay, but the lack of fast chargers (350kw+) make it difficult to do long trips without stopping constantly, and northern Ontario / Quebec is basically devoid of charging stations.

[–] Yaztromo@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The toll that fast charging puts on the battery tends to mostly be a problem either in very hot climates, or in instances where you’re charging to 100% a lot. But if you’re using fast charging mostly to get up to 80% here in Canada you’re likely not going to run into a significant decrease in battery life.

(Unfortunately, we can’t say much about this from real world experience, as vehicles that can handle 350kW+ charging are still somewhat rare, and those that do exist (like vehicles built upon Hyundai’s E-GMP platform) aren’t even 5 years old yet).

I drive an AWD IONIQ 5 (Ultimate Edition FWIW) — and the most trouble I’ve had at chargers has simply been lining up when it’s been too busy, and having to wait for much slower charging vehicles to finish up at fast chargers. But that has also been rare, and is more common through the BC interior where there are long distances between towns/cities through the mountains and EVERYONE stops at them to top up. But I’ve certainly heard my share of stories. Indeed, just last week I was helping a friend who is taking a road trip out to Alberta find suitable charging near his hotel — and it turns out that in that area there has been a significant problem with people chopping off the cables repeatedly.

It’s only getting better — but where things are improving is pretty uneven. But this is where the EVSE installation credit for car manufacturers is so important — and why we can’t back down on the 2035 phase-out of sales of purely gasoline powered vehicles (recall, PHEVs are permitted for sale after 2035 by the current rules). If the automakers can’t make the 2026 sales targets they can start building out the EVSEs we need to convince people it’s safe to buy more EVs.

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago

I lived with the exact same car you have, and yeah, waiting for slow cars at fast chargers was one of the pain points, but I think this is just a question of social etiquette. More charging infrastructure should also resolve this issue.

You may very well be right about our temperatures generally not being high enough to hammer the battery that much, though Quebec summers can get pretty hot for short periods of time.

How is your IONIQ 5 in the deep of winter, with winter tires and -25c weather? I never drove such an EV in winter, and since current EVs rely so much on the insane efficiency of their motors rather than the battery capacity, temperature and tires can make a difference in range.

[–] axus@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago

Doesn't the other big C country sell electric cars for cheap?

[–] lost_faith@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Capitulation Carney :(

Don't make this a theme

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 1 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

The username checks out for the situation. We need to keep our car energy supply directly within Canada.

[–] lost_faith@lemmy.ca 1 points 17 hours ago

huh?

[–] HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago

Please provide a source for the quote beginning with, "We do not have a trade problem", and change the title to match what the Politico is (rule 1 of this instance.)

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 9 points 17 hours ago

He needs to put the canadian people first and hold steadfast on the 2030 ice ban. Don't let America and the legacy automotive industry degrade Canada.

[–] Greyghoster@aussie.zone 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sounds like Asian and European EVs are the go. TACO will come through in the end.

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 2 points 17 hours ago

Trump is looking more wrong as time goes on. Pathetic man who lose his power eventually.

[–] karlhungus@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago

I agree, EV's aren't a complete climate solution. Do car company's or trump need more capitulation though? Haven't they gotten enough.

[–] Yaztromo@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

The part these automotive executives are conveniently not mentioning is that the EV mandate already allows auto manufacturers to get out of meeting the quotas if they build out charging infrastructure instead. They can get credits for building charging stations to go against current and future years where they miss their commitments.

AFAIK, in Canada there is currently only one auto manufacturer that is building out charging capacity, and that’s Tesla (who don’t even need that credit, as they only make EVs anyway!).

The Carney Government needs to tell these automakers that they need to get shovels in the ground and start building out that infrastructure. That will be good for Canadian jobs, and will increase the likelihood their customers will choose an EV in the future. The two Provinces where EV charging is easy and prevalent (BC and Quebec) already have the most EVs on the road (as a proportion of all vehicles) out of all the Provinces — so we know building more charging capacity leads to more sales. I’m no fan of Tesla (I drive a Hyundai IONIQ 5), but they realized early on they couldn’t just wait for others to build out charging capacity for them if they wanted to sell EVs — the other North American auto manufacturers need to realize that and get on to building out that capacity. Then they’ll sell cars, and then they’ll meet the mandates.

Shoves in ground, CEOs. And do us a favour and buy Canadian — we have several EVSE manufacturers in Canada making some really good kit to choose from.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 17 hours ago

The future of automobiles ain't going to be ICE vehicles, so that would literally be sacrificing the future of Canada's Auto Industry.

The last thing any nation should do is follow the MAGA crowd in sinking the future of their nation as a modern high-tech economy in the XXI century.

[–] CircaV@lemmy.ca 8 points 8 hours ago

Fuck Carney if he caves 1 milimetre on this fascist bullshit.

[–] jaemo@sh.itjust.works 4 points 16 hours ago

Hey car companies, know what's really impossible? Me ever behind the wheel of a gas powered vehicle ever again!

[–] JoeDyrt@lemmy.ca 3 points 23 hours ago

Nope! Not going to be a captive market for murican car makers.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 points 16 hours ago

EVs made in US and its allied colonies are already at price parity with their ICE versions before rebates. EVs have much higher performance, comfort, and operational costs not subject to geopolitical/extortionist industries, and even empower individuals to escape electric monopoly extortion, and in near future, cooperate with utilities/society to permit much more renewables, and profit from your EV through electricity arbitrage.

EVs get cheaper every year. Infrastructure supporting them improves every year. Protectionism for oil companies, and legacy ICE that oil companies depend on, is a terrible private and social investment strategy. It is not just climate terrorism to protect evil from competition, policy requires ever more protection as the rest of the world improves EV value proposition even more. Insurance costs skyrocketing as planet boils is further made worse.

Whether or not credits are kept, mandate should be obvious, because investment in EVs or micromobility is not only obvious, but by 2030/2035 gives everyone plenty of time to get there.

For Carney to cave on EVs, he needs to deny global warming, and explicitly endorse the climate terrorism policies that have effectively been in place through war distractions/priorities over a sustainable world ever since global warming was understood.

US policy designed to destroy Canada's auto sector would furthermore lead to recommendations against submission to a future where Canadians can still only buy US branded gas guzzlers. I'd rather see nuclear annihilation threats made against the US instead of yet another act of cooperative submission, for explicit purposes of destruction of human sustainability, and cooperation in Canadian auto production destruction, being considered by Canada.

[–] LoveCanada@lemmy.ca -1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

They're not wrong.

Ive owned an EV for 7 years now and it does some things really well and its not very good at others. Its not SUPERIOR to my gas vehicles, its just different.

Its ludicrous to tell Canadians that they can ONLY buy EVs at a certain point. It doesnt make sense to force that change when they dont suit a lot of applications. For example there are currently NO EVs that are great at pulling trailers, they lose far too much range when hauling. They also lose 20 to 40% of their range in winter. They also take considerably longer to charge on a road trip than a gas car takes to fill up and thats only IF you can find a convenient charger, its available, its working and you have signed up for the correct payment app - not nearly as simple as using a gas station.

They ARE good for commuting especially if you live in a city. And theres no denying that they are far less costly to maintain. My little EV has cost a TOTAL of $400 in 7 years. Thats amazingly low. And its very reliable. Nothing to check, just unplug it and drive it. But its still not my first choice for many tasks.

Buyers aren't stupid, they will buy what they need and what suits their lifestyle, not what the gov tells them they need.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 9 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Its ludicrous to tell Canadians that they can ONLY buy EVs at a certain point.

The goal isn't to force consumers to buy one. It's to force manufacturers to work out the flaws you mentioned and produce a better EV instead of focusing on out-dated technology. That's why the cut-over date is so far out. They want to give them time to work on the technology.

[–] LoveCanada@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

But there are some things about EVs that cannot be overcome because science. Like the fact that gasoline holds far more energy for its weight than batteries ever can. Which is why things like the Tesla semi is a flop. Because to get the range you get out of two saddle tanks of diesel the semi would have to carry much more weight in batteries than is practical and charge times and kW input would be astronomical.

The same goes for cars but to a lesser extent. We CAN make them go far (a Lucid EV just set a record at 1205 km on a single charge) but that car costs well over 150,000 because of the massive amount of batteries needed.

Then there's the electrical infrastructure issue. Most EV owners charge at home, but if EVERY household had an EV there will be a significant new draw on our electrical grid. If everyone charges at night thats not a huge deal but obviously if everyone had an EV there going to be a lot of people charging during the day too, especially on trips. We'd have to add a lot of power to our grid and EVERY power source requires some kind of environmental cost, the question is only how much.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

But there are some things about EVs that cannot be overcome because science. Like the fact that gasoline holds far more energy for its weight than batteries ever can.

That's true for our current batteries. Where does science say we'll never be able to make batteries with a higher energy density than fossil fuels?

This is merely one of the limitations I mentioned manufacturers need to work on.

We’d have to add a lot of power to our grid and EVERY power source requires some kind of environmental cost, the question is only how much.

Right, which is why we need to build out renewable capacity as we go. By forcing EVs onto the market it would spur home owners to add solar panels to their roofs. The rise in demand would increase new production. Again, that's why it's a long term phase out rather than cutting over suddenly.

Also it's far more efficient to generate power in large facilities rather than in lots of little ones. It's better to have a few larger power generation plants rather than every car having its own. It's the economy of scale. One generator that produces enough power for 100 vehicles is more efficient than 100 generators powering one vehicle each. Transmission distance lowers that efficiency, so hopefully those sources can be clean and local to where they're being used.

[–] LoveCanada@lemmy.ca 0 points 8 hours ago

Where does science say we’ll never be able to make batteries with a higher energy density than fossil fuels?

Well nowhere except that the mandate is trying to force the changeover in five years time, and despite multiple announcements about 'new' 'long range' batteries, no ones been able to make the quantum leap needed. And its not a minor gap: Gasoline stores about 47.5 MJ/kg, while lithium-ion batteries typically store around 0.3 MJ/kg. This means gasoline provides roughly 100 times more energy per unit of weight. Thats a huge leap for batteries to overcome.

Also, EVs are competing against gas cars but gas cars are also improving a great deal. It used to be getting 25 mpg in a sedan was impressive enough, but I just talked to an owner with a Maverick hybrid who said on her best run she got almost 70 mpg. Incredible for a small truck.

Hybrids may be the answer. Full battery EVs dont do everything and gas cars have issues, but hybrids bridge the gap. The main problem there being that now you have to maintain two drive systems, so its not exactly a recipe for easy maintenance as they age.

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

It doesnt make sense to force that change when they dont suit a lot of applications.

So when the worlds climate scientists say we must stop buring fossil fuels or risk the collpase of civilisation, your retort is, only when it's convenient for Candaians ?

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When it's pointed out that many millions around the world die every year from transport pollution, sucks to be them?

Here's what one Canadian had to say to that

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/07/un-expert-human-rights-climate-crisis-economy

Outgoing special rapporteur David Boyd says ‘there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand how grave this is’

[–] LoveCanada@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

The thing is the environment doesnt care WHERE the GHG's are coming from. So it makes sense to attack the problem where the problem is. And the problem is NOT in Canada. Our emissions are a margin of error in the global scale and Canada does very well because we have such a huge land mass and a lot of plants and trees to take up our carbon and GHG's.

So when people say we have to buy EVs, thats a pretty ridiculous statement for Canadians. If EVERY vehicle in Canada was an EV the global climate would not even notice the difference. Therefore forcing EVs in Canada is far more about performative actions and virtue signalling than it is about actually changing the environment.

What would actually make a difference is to change the way we do business with the two biggest polluters in the world - China and the USA. They are dumping GHGs into the atmosphere by the tonne. Its like a boat has hit a log that's punched a huge hole in the hull and water is pouring in but Canada is here putting a bandaid over a little crack at the back of the boat. We just dont matter til the big hole is fixed and even if the little crack is completely sealed the boat is still sinking fast.

It wouldn't be hard to say to both countries, we will limit our trade with you til you clean up your act. Put a limit on China's emissions in order for us to buy their goods.

But that won't happen. Because that eats into profits. And no corporation is going to support that. So instead they push Joe Average to buy an EV, as if parking his 20 yr old Corolla and buying an 60k EV is going to make a smidgen of difference in the worlds climate. It wont. But that doesnt matter, what matters is that no one looks too hard at whose doing the damage and forcing them to change because it will worsen their bottom line. The EV message is mostly smoke and mirrors to keep you from looking behind the curtain.