GUNTER: Wait to see if Carney government rolls back federal mandate on EVs
At the same time EVs sales were falling off a cliff, overall vehicle sales were up more than nine per cent.
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Electric vehicle sales in Canada have collapsed.
Both Statistics Canada and AutoTrader, the online marketplace for new and used cars, released reports in the past week showing that EV sales have declined sharply, as have the number of car shoppers who would consider a switch away from ICEs (internal combustion engines) to an EV.
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Far fewer Canadians who are in the car market are open to buying an EV.
That makes the Carney government’s willingness (or not) to roll back the federal EV mandate a good marker of whether Ottawa is now going to get realistic on “green” agenda items or continue the woke, virtue signalling of the Trudeau era.
All new cars, SUVs and light trucks sold in Canada just 10 years from now must be “zero-emissions” (mostly EVs or plug-in hybrid electrics), according to a federal mandate introduced in December 2023.
The regulations also dictate that 20 per cent of new vehicles must be EVs by next year (2026) and 60 per cent by 2030.
The latest sales figures show none of those targets will be met without giant subsidies from federal and provincial governments, and likely not even then.
Federal incentives of $5,000 per vehicle to buy EVs ended in January. In February, EV sales dropped more than 41 per cent from the previous February. And in March, they fell almost 45 per cent from March 2024.
Where once federal Liberals and eco-activists trumpeted the fact EVs accounted for nearly 14 per cent of new vehicles sold in the country, since the end of mega-subsidies to car buyers, the share of the market taken up by EVs has plummeted to just 6.5 per cent.
There’s your true market for EVs — less than half the demand from when governments were pumping in billions to manipulate the marketplace.
Want further proof consumers don’t want EVs? At the same time EVs sales were falling off a cliff, overall vehicle sales were up more than nine per cent. The bulk of the booming demand? According to StatsCan “gas-powered SUVs.”
Canadians want new vehicles, just not new EVs. So, it will be very telling whether the Carney Liberals eliminate the federal EV mandate or cling to it like the dictatorial eco-zealots of the Trudeau government.
And it’s not just the end of federal (and Ontario) subsidies to car buyers that has soured the market. According to AutoTrader, the trend began three years ago. Peak interest in EVs came in 2022.
Since then, interest among potential new-car buyers has dropped to just 42 per cent who would even consider an EV, and just 29 per cent who would consider only an EV — down from around 40 per cent three years ago.
Buyers’ top concerns about buying electric are the same as they have been for years: They don’t travel far enough on a charge, they take too long to recharge and they’re too expensive.
When the 2035 mandate was announced in late 2023, the federal natural resources department’s own research showed that EVs were 15 to 20 per cent more expensive to buy. The bureaucrats estimated the mandate would make cars unaffordable for nearly one-quarter of Canadians. At present, only about 12 per cent cannot afford a car or light truck.
When Honda Canada announced last week it would not go ahead with $15 billion in EV plant construction in Ontario for at least another two years, Ontario Premier Doug Ford (whose government has committed tens of billions of tax dollars to plants like Honda’s and Volkswagen’s) blamed U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. With tariffs in place, Canadian-made vehicles would be more expensive in the States.
There is some truth to that. However, the biggest, single reason Honda stepped back is few buyers on either side of the border want EVs.
The problem is politicians (like Ford) who allowed themselves to be duped by the EV hype.
It will be fascinating to see whether the Carney government has the courage to accept this new reality.
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