The federal Liberals have officially set targets for new car and truck sales in Canada: by 2035, every passenger vehicle will be zero emissions.
The plan is a key part of the goal to slash greenhouse gas emissions. Canadians driving their cars and trucks spew almost the same volume of emissions every year as the entire oil sands.
Governments play a central role in the transition to electric vehicles, in the early going. This includes Ottawa’s move in December to set targets for automakers.
But targets alone cannot change a system built up over the past century.
Change includes everything from Ottawa’s proposed rules to cut most fossil fuels from power generation by 2035 to expanding a national network of charging stations. And then there are important but less obvious priorities, such as not hindering competition from imports of lower-cost EVs.
Governments have long shaped what sort of cars operate on the road. They mandated seatbelts in every vehicle and better fuel efficiency. Government intervention in British Columbia and Quebec, including subsidies to buy EVs and funding a robust charging network, has already led to significant change. In both provinces, more than 20 per cent of new vehicles sold are zero emission.
B.C. and Quebec underpin the surge of EVs in Canada’s national sales figures: last fall, 13.3 per cent of all new vehicles were battery electric or plug-in hybrids. If hybrid vehicles are included, the proportion of people buying fossil fuel cars has fallen to 75 per cent from 86 per cent in less than two years.
The rapid gains put Ottawa’s target of 100 per cent by 2035 in perspective. The plans may seem aggressive but in general mirror those in California, which has long set new standards in automotive policy, and federally in the United States and Europe. Interim milestones are within reach. In 2026, the target is 20 per cent. Consultancy S&P Global Mobility sees zero-emission vehicle sales in Canada at 25 per cent by 2025, above and earlier than Ottawa’s target.
There are of course many challenges. One is cost. While EVs are cheaper than fossil fuel cars over a decade of ownership, they are often more expensive to buy. B.C., Quebec and Ottawa offer subsidies – which overly benefit higher-income Canadians because of the high price of many EVs. A better outcome would be more competition and selection among EV models, with lower-cost imports from countries like China. This can happen at the same time Canada builds up its own EV manufacturing industry, from batteries to assembly plants.
Another question is range and weather: how far can an EV go, and how does winter change that? For most Canadians – the median commute is nine kilometres – EVs have plenty of range, several hundred kilometres, even in winter. In some rural areas, hybrids will make more sense this decade but battery technology will also advance. Range tripled over the past decade.
A bigger issue is charging. There are about 25,000 public chargers today. Ottawa says it will spend $1.2-billion to add about 70,000 in the next five years. Roughly 100,000 more are needed in that time frame. Many current EV owners charge at home. Apartment buildings are a different story. There are subsidies for older buildings to install chargers and some cities have mandated new buildings include them.
As EVs proliferate, the private sector will need to take the lead. Government may help lead change but its role isn’t permanent. Petro-Canada has a cross-country network of chargers. But it’s early: there are only three in the Toronto region.
Shifting from gasoline cars to EVs is a big move. Another is easing back from car culture. Governments have a role to invest more in transit and rethink how cities are designed. Paris is a leader, making many changes that have slashed car travel in the city. By 2030, fossil fuel cars will be banned there.
While the overhaul may seem daunting, the road can be smoothed. Norway is a pioneer in EVs; almost all new vehicles there are zero emission. The power grid remains stable and the challenges of a cold climate haven’t slowed the transition. Cities are quieter and air pollution is down. Gasoline and diesel demand fell 6.7 per cent in the past year – along the lines of predictions EVs could reduce oil demand worldwide by 5 per cent by 2030.
Oil and cars rose together in the 20th century. Getting oil out of cars is the mission of this century.