Unless policies or technologies change, the ownership cost of electric vehicles (EVs) needs to decrease by 31 per cent if Canada to wants to reach its sales target of 60 per cent EVs by 2030, according to a new report released Thursday by Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux.
Last December, the federal government unveiled its Electric Vehicle Availability Standard that outlined zero-emission vehicle sales targets for automakers. The standard requires all new light-duty sales in Canada to be electric or plug-in hybrid by 2035. There are also interim targets of at least 20 per cent of all sales being EVs by 2026 and 60 per cent by 2030.
Those federal government targets come as growth forecasts for auto companies have plateaued and concerns about charging infrastructure persist. The price of EVs has also pushed the cars out of reach for many consumers. According to the Canadian Black Book, the average cost of an EV was $73,000 in 2023.
Protecting domestic industries from competing with China does nothing to strengthen it.
If China was playing fair and being a good ally, I’d be okay with that. They aren’t. Their companies regularly engage in everything from dumping to industrial espionage, not to mention the worker exploitation and abuse, and extending into the government interference both internally and externally.
Protecting ourselves from a single country still allows every other country to compete with us.
So do American and every other companies.
Having been to China myself, and seen the inside of multiple factories and worked with multiple experts, no, it’s not happening to every other company.
Western people simply do not understand the mindset of the Chinese government or populace when it comes to exploitation, corruption, and cheating. There’s a reason why China is having issues with buildings literally falling apart, and why people consider Chinese products to be inferior in quality.
This is right. There are different categories of exploitation and corruption, and it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. “Well sure but there’s exploitation everywhere” is the wrong lens to understand this through.
But like most companies manufacture their stuff in China… so it’s always China, sometimes with extra steps.
And while it may be worse there, the literal billions EU/US car manufacturers received and pocketed instead of supporting their own business makes me want to support them even less.
To your first point: Yes, and decreasing reliance on China would be exactly how we could start to counteract that. I think we’re agreeing with each other there.
As far as EU/US manufacturers behaving badly… I don’t know enough about that situation to really comment intelligibly, but yeah that also sounds bad.
There has been a massive move away from China. They are still a major force but the West and China are moving apart. The vehicle tariffs are just an example of that.
I would not be surprised to see Tesla factories in Mexico. Chinese manufacturing is increasingly domestic and regional.
God forbid they actually pay people fair wage and manufacture at home.