When Prime Minister Mark Carney He met with the CEO of the automotive sector on Wednesday Regarding the commercial negotiations of the United States, one of the key issues that the industry said that it wanted to discuss was the mandate of the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) of the government.
The mandate It requires a certain percentage of light service vehicles -Sharps, SUV and trucks-that are sold to be completely electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, starting with 20 percent in 2026 and increasing 100 percent by 2035.
Brian Kingston, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Vehicle Manufacturers, told CBC News on the way to the meeting that “the objectives that have been established cannot be met” given the current market forces.
He later added that Canada already has other policies to meet its greenhouse gas emission objectives.
Burning fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel is the main cause of climate change, and transport is The second largest emission source in Canada After the oil and gas industry.
Zev’s mandate is part of Canada’s strategy to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles and decarbonize the transport sector.
But if the mandate was discarded, analysts say that would damage efforts to combat climate change, and make it difficult to find an EV for sale in parts of the country. Here is a closer look to why.
How large are passenger vehicles emissions?
In 2023, transport represented 23 percent of Canada greenhouse gas emissions. Unlike some sectors that have reduced emissions since 1990, transport emissions have grown by 33 percent, driven by heavy cargo service trucks and passenger trucks.
Passenger vehicles only represented approximately 12 percent of Canada’s emissions in 2023.
The Canadian Climate Institute, a group of climate policy experts financed in part by the environment and the climate change in Canada, modeled 60 Net-Cero potential scenarios and discovered that changing to zero emissions vehicles was fundamental to all.
Arthur Zhang, a senior research associate at the Institute, said that EVs are “one of the most reliable technologies we have to reduce emissions in the transport sector.”
The federal government is presenting its final plan to eliminate the elimination of new passenger vehicles with gasoline by 2035, with gradually increased objectives for manufacturers to meet.
How would Zev’s mandate increase to the adoption of EV?
Its objective is to solve some problems.
One of the challenges so far has been the lack of availability of electric vehicles in many parts of Canada.
In a recent interview, Cara Clairman, president and executive director of Plug’n Drive, an organization focused on public education on electric vehicles, in many parts of Canada, It is still impossible to find an EV to trydue to low availability in concessionaires. The exceptions are BC and Quebec, which have their own Zev sales mandates.
“That means that more distributors have [electric] Cars, “he said.” If the vehicles are in the lots, you know, they sell more electric vehicles. That is just reality. “
Zhang said the mandate indicates the government’s support for the transition of EV and provides manufacturers to focus on electric vehicles even for periods of slower demand, as now.
The EVs represented 7.53 percent of all new vehicles sold in April, below a peak of 18.29 percent in December 2024, now that federal reimbursements of Quebec and BC have gone. The Federal Government says that a new refund program is in process, that consumers are waiting, and Kingston says it is harming EV sales at this time.
Electric vehicles are increasingly easy to find in Canadian car dealers, but are still more expensive than most vehicles with gasoline. Ev experts encourage drivers to consider provincial fuel savings and incentives as they reflect on their next car purchase.
And he said that it could also reduce the price of electric vehicles, since manufacturers and importers increase the price of gas combustion vehicles in relation to electric vehicles and “subsidized them” to meet sales objectives.
Ross McKitrick, professor of Economics at the University of Guelph and unpaid senior member at the Fraser Institute, predicted such a marking of gas vehicles in a Recent study modeling the economic impacts of the Zev mandate. However, he discovered that the additional marking of gas combustion vehicles would be compensated with lower general sales due to the prices of higher vehicles in general (reducing the size of the fleet of Canada vehicles by 0.6 percent by 2050).
Manufacturers or importers can also obtain credits towards the objective by selling more electric vehicles in advance, exceeding the target a few years or installing the EV load infrastructure, which could also help increase the demand for EV. However, those who do not meet the objectives even with the credits would face sanctions.
Recent holders have suggested that consumers are losing interest in electric vehicles, but a look closer to trends tells a different story. Nisha patel of CBC breakdown where we are in the EV transition and why experts say the future is still electric.
What impact would the mandate have on emissions?
McKitrick’s study found that initially, the impact would be modest, since people’s cars slowly age before needing replacement. But by 2050, the EV mandate will have reduced Canada greenhouse gas emissions by approximately eight percent compared to a “base scenario” without an EV mandate.
That is great, taking into account that passenger vehicles represent 12 percent of emissions at this time, and emissions would already be decreasing due to the adoption of EVs.
McKitrick said that discarding the mandate would mean renouncing that eight percent emission reduction.
Couldn’t other policies reduce emissions if Zev’s mandate is discarded?
Zhang said that government subsidies, such as funds for EV -collection infrastructure and reimbursements for people who buy EVs can make a difference, but those work better as complementary policies: “They are not substitutes for the mandate in terms of emission reductions,” he said.
He added that subsidies are based on taxpayers’ dollars, which can be less efficient than a policy to encourage manufacturers to make EVs more attractive.
On the other hand, McKitrick calculated that Zev’s mandate would be approximately 10 times more expensive per ton of carbon that decreased that the old federal carbon tax, What Prime Minister Mark Carney eliminated in March? – Although the “cost” of the ZEV mandate would fall to zero once electric vehicles and gasoline cars cost the same.
That is already the case in some places outside Canada, said Zhang.
Canada is in line with the USA. And imposing 100 percent tariffs on all electric vehicles that come from China to combat the “unfair advantage” that it has in the global market. On that producer Lauren Bird explores why North America is closing the door of a massive source of cheap electric vehicles and why experts say that consumers will pay the price. Correction: At 1:47 in this video, we affirm that the cheapest tesla on the market as of August 28, 2024, in the United States, is a model and for approximately $ 45,000 USD. In fact, the cheapest tesla he can buy in the US.
A strategy to promote sales and adoption of EV that has been proposed by academics and defenders of EV has been Waste rates in Chinese carsthat are sold for only $ 13,000 CDN abroad.
Zhang acknowledged: “In the event that cheapest EVs are available to consumers, the mandate of EV may not be so shocking.”
