Why Canada's EV initiative faltered

It makes depressing reading, but we have to face up to the extent to which Canada's electric vehicle (EV) initiative is failing.

While EV sales are booming in much of the world, Canada (and the USA) is lagging badly. EVs now make up about 25% of new passenger vehicle sales worldwide, up from 3% just six years ago. That stat hides figures for some countries that are well in excess of that: Norway 86%, China 53%, UK 36%, EU 28%.

There are many other countries where EV sales make up more than 50%, some of which may be surprising: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands and Iceland (not so surprising), and Nepal and Ethiopia (more surprising).

And Canada? 8% (the tiny little green bar on the right), down from 12% a year ago. Provincially, Quebec and BC are still batting above the national average, but even they are down significantly (Quebec down to 15% from 26% a year ago). Even the USA had slightly better figures than Canada, at 9%.

The reason is deliberate (and short-sighted) policy changes over the last year, at both the federal and principal levels. The federal government ended its $5,000 EV rebate program, Quebec ended its $7,000 rebates, benighted Ontario ended its rebate program years ago. Quebec has since brought its rebate back, at a much lower $4,000 level. The feds are talking about bringing back an EV rebate, but don't hold your breath.

Then, the federal carbon tax was ended (telegraphed well in advance) by the "new" Liberal governemnt, and BC also ended its long-standing carbon tax, all of which made gas vehicles more attractive, at the expense of EV sales.

And, arguably the big one, although it's a tricky moral decision to get your head (and heart) around, the decision to slap a 100% tariff on the important of inexpensive (and apparently excellent) Chinese EVs, making.them unaffordable for most Canadians. How do you think countries like Ethiopia and Nepal were able to increase their EV share so dramatically? Cheap Chinese imports, of course.

Given all these stacked factors, what did they think was going to happen? EVs down, ICE vehicles up, big time. This was, then, a deliberate decision to throw the environment under the bus - almost literally - mainly, as far as I can tell, to remain in lockstep with a rampant maverick USA with which we have almost nothing in common anyway these days.

And that (rather aspirational) Canadian "EV mandate" of 20% for EVs by 2026? Well, as the.next chart shows, we were on track for that until all these set-backs and road-blocks were placed in the way. Now, there is no way the goal can be achieved, and the subsequent much higher goals now look laughable.

What a sad state of affairs. And if you thought a new Liberal government was going to suddenly turn things around, well, it's clearly not going to happen any time soon.