Could be revolutionary, especially in EV “have not” provinces like mine
EV support in Canada’s 2030 emissions plan
The federal government just released its 271-page 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan which — spoiler alert! — includes a measure (a national ZEV sales mandate) that could make more of a difference than anything it has done so far to spur adoption of EVs.
The government had already promised a target that 50% of new vehicles sold in Canada be zero emissions by 2030–100% by 2035. It has now fleshed out how this will happen — a bit.
The single page summary of initiatives to further support EV adoption, includes (page 61):
- ZEV sales requirements of 20% for light duty vehicles by 2026 and 60% by 2030 — significantly more ambitious than what BC already put in place.
- A $1.7bn continuation of the iZEV incentive for three more years
- New targets for medium and heavy duty vehicle (MHDV) sales — 35% of them to be ZEVs by 2030 (though not mandates that require manufacturers to meet them... yet.) $547.5m of new subsidies for MHDVs to be announced in Budget 2022)
- $400m of co-funding to build charging stations and $500m from the Canada Infrastructure Bank for charging and refuelling infrastructure that is “revenue generating” (odd terminology since all fast chargers generate some revenue).
I’ll return to all of this later but here in EV-starved Newfoundland (I believe you could count EVs available to sell here at the moment on the fingers of one hand) the key question will be “how will the requirement on car manufacturers to make EVs a steadily increasing proportion of their sales (the ZEV sales mandate) be distributed regionally”?
Historically (as sales figures show) manufacturers have concentrated on selling EVs where government mandates require them to, leaving other areas fighting for crumbs. This leads to a chicken and egg situation in EV “have not” provinces and countries — local dealers don’t pay much attention to EVs because even if they sold them hard they couldn’t get many. Provinces and cities didn’t support EV infrastructure because there weren’t many cars, and the public didn’t take EVs seriously because in part of a lack of availability, local expertise and infrastructure support. The national mandate could change all of this… but not if it just perpetuates the existing imbalance.
The federal government may need to push EV “have not” provinces to set local requirements that are more ambitious than their local dealers and car manufacturers say they can meet. I am waiting to hear how the quotas will be set with bated breath — the response from Environment and Climate Change Canada could come tomorrow!
The wider context
The report included a welcome recognition that even in “light duty vehicles” our adoption rate is nowhere near what it needs to be — just 5.6% of cars sold last year were ZEVs (fewer than 4% if you exclude plug-in hybrids which the government absurdly claims are ZEVs). Notably, there are highly variable proportions across different provinces (particularly striking to me as I live in the “bottom province” of Newfoundland & Labrador). Purchasers in BC, Ontario and Quebec snapped up a staggering 95.4% of all EVs.
With transportation-related emissions making up 25% of Canada’s emissions, and “light duty” cars and trucks being half of that number, this represents a huge opportunity for emissions reduction.
