Canada’s government on Monday announced it is imposing a 100% tariff on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles that matches U.S. tariffs and follows similar plans announced by the European Commission.
The announcement followed encouragement by U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and cabinet ministers on Sunday. Sullivan is set to make his first visit to Beijing on Tuesday.
Trudeau said Canada also will impose a 25% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum.
“Actors like China have chosen to give themselves an unfair advantage in the global marketplace,” he said.
I disagree with the idea there are no affordable EVs in Canada, based on the numbers and purchasing habits of new car buyers anyway. If the average price of a new vehicle in Canada is $66,8XX , and EVs can be had for below that, then for the new car buying market the EVs are affordable, but just not what people want to buy (for whatever reason).
For me, I traded my ICE vehicle for an EV in 2019 and I save money every single month when you add the financing to the price of gas I used to buy. I traded a Mazda 3 Sport for a Chevy Bolt EV, and even though the Mazda was about $15,000 cheaper, and even though it got about 7.7 l/100km real world fuel economy, it is cheaper to drive the EV because ICE operating costs are so much higher.
I was in the market for a second used EV as well, and there are right now recent year model EVs in the mid 20/low 30s for sale. Now these are not large vehicles, but they are affordable especially after operating costs are included. The prices for the most affordable new and used EVs right now are actually at or around the average price for a new vehicle in 2019.
I think though, what is really going on with new car buyers, is that people compare a Fiat 500e, or a Chevy Bolt EV, or another small EV, to larger ICE vehicles costing $10 or $15 thousand dollars less and then conflate their desire for the larger vehicle with affordability. The EV is not affordable because I must have a certain ride height, or certain features. They want the larger vehicle, the larger vehicle is cheaper out the door, therefore the EV is not affordable. This is a calculation done without considering fuel economy, changing fuel prices. In reality, they could afford it, just through the shifting of operating costs onto capital costs, but they don’t want it.
I generally agree with you on oil subsidies though.
Just because a car is cheaper than the average new car doesn’t make it affordable. Lots of people can only afford used cars. I’m not suggesting we need new EVs to compete with used car prices, but we need the prices to come down so that the prices of current used EVs become more affordable and/or these cheaper new EVs become affordable when they’re resold in several years.
You make some good points but I don’t agree with them all. I wouldn’t even call a 30k vehicle “affordable”. Also due to the lifestyle some have, it’s not possible to get the smallest vehicle possible. Now you’re looking at 80k+ for one.