This week, Canada will announce new regulations requiring all vehicles sold in the country to be zero-emissions by 2035, according to a report. The move works to phase out fossil-fuel-burning vehicles in the country but also shorten the biggest barrier for Canadian consumers: long wait times.
“This is helping to solve one of the greatest barriers to EVs uptake: that wait times are too long,” an unnamed senior government official told the Toronto Star in a report.
“We are making sure that supply is going toward Canadian markets, because one of the issues with EVs is that we’re competing against other markets where the actual EVs are being shipped to.”
The new regulations, dubbed the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard, intend to correct this problem by ensuring that enough EVs are available in the Canadian market to meet the “large and growing” demand. The source said that Canada – which sold around 85K BEVs in 2022 – had concerns about its role in the market being overshadowed by the US and other markets.
The government is expected to announce the news tomorrow.
According to the new rules, 20% of all new car sales in 2026 will include battery electric, hydrogen, and plug-in electric vehicles. By 2030, that percentage will rise to 60%, and 100% in 2035. “The total anticipated cost to consumers of zero-emissions vehicles and chargers will be $24.5 billion over 25 years, but Canadians can expect to save $33.9 billion in net energy costs,” cites the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Automakers can also earn credits based on the number of EVs they sell, the report said, with the cleanest cars gaining more credits. Credits can also be accrued by automakers for investing in EV charging infrastructure and for rolling out more EVs before the regulations begin in 2026.
Back in April, the Biden administration aimed for two-thirds of light-duty passenger cars to be electric by 2032, but the House voted last week in favor of blocking proposed regulations that would have pushed the country toward this target.
New York, New Jersey, and California are among more than a dozen states that have EV sales regulations. The European Union has set its date as 2035 to ban the sales of new ICE vehicles, and the UK introduced its EV sales mandate with a target of 100% of EV sales by 2035.
City Dwellers’s Take
According to the IEA, there are some 26 million electric cars on the road around the world as of 2022, up 60% from 2021. Demand is there, and people are ready, but legislation needs to catch up. No one said that decarbonizing the automobile industry would be easy, of course, and parts of this transition won’t look pretty. Still, moves like this add more pressure on automakers to accelerate EV production. Major automakers are already doing that, with firm plans in place to phase out ICE vehicles: GM is targeting 2035, with smaller automakers with quicker timelines, and European automakers are moving to phase out quickly to meet the EU deadline.
Plus, even with that faraway date of 2035, the policy (at least as it is expected to be announced) would prevent the release of some 430 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, reports say, which is something.
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