Canada to Ban Sale of New Fuel-Powered Cars and Light Trucks from 2035 | Hacker News Reader

Canada to Ban Sale of New Fuel-Powered Cars and Light Trucks from 2035

reuters.com

74 pointsinfodocket119 comments

Bans this far into the future are so meaningless. They're a way for ostensibly progressive governments to act like they're doing something without upsetting anyone in power. Fourteen years from now, this will either happen without a ban even being necessary, or whatever government is in power will just say "well this obviously was unrealistic" and simply reverse the ban.

I disagree. It sends a clear signal to combustion vehicle manufacturers that they waited long enough and it’s time to adapt or die. Arguably, 2030 would be a better date considering the atmospheric CO2 saturation level, but it is what it is.

I will even go so far as to argue that Tesla was the catalyst for demonstrating this should be done (with EVs that are at parity with combustion vehicles in some ways, and better in some ways).

>It sends a clear signal to combustion vehicle manufacturers that they waited long enough and it’s time to adapt or die

How does it send a clear message if the change can be undone if the opposition party comes in power at any point in the next 14 years?

Vehicle manufacturing and supply chains decision and capital investments are made on decade timelines.

The probability that the opposition will be in power for one point in the next 14 years is pretty high. Besides, given that canada's population is a tenth of the US's, in the worst case they'll have a 10% overproduction of ICE cars.

By the same method, the probability that the opposition to the opposition will regain power for one point in the next 14 years is high.

If, at that point, any competitor has seen their development programme through, and you haven't, especially if they've also got some local manufacturing - your company is dead. These deadlines aren't moving backwards.

It's Canada, haha, Trudeau is likely to serve another 14 years. That would still put him 1 year short of the record held by McKenzie King at 22 years.

The elder Trudeau served just under 16 years total.

> the change can be undone if the opposition party comes in power at any point

Well, yes, that's how all democracies on the planet function. It's a feature that has pros and cons, but it's the system we are working under. Let's rally behind this kind of "good" and keep making our voices heard so it sticks, rather than apathetically complaining about the state of things.

Undoing of those policies is very unlikely.

The people (i.e. voters) overwhelmingly support action to limit climate change. That's the reason those laws are politically viable in the first place.

Once enacted, trying to undo them after being in place for 4 years will not only be difficult procedurally but politically suicidal.

It won't happen unless the political party in question has so much electoral buffer that they can ignore what 70%+ voters think about the subject.

Furthermore, if you believe that the climate is changing for the worse then every year will be even more devastating than the one before.

Power cables and roads in Oregon melting due to extreme heat? Next year even more cables and roads will melt.

Every year the public support for climate action will grow and opposition to it will become even more politically suicidal.

>The people (i.e. voters) overwhelmingly support action to limit climate change. That's the reason those laws are politically viable in the first place.

In the abstract, sure, but if (hypothetically) 13 years from now people are staring down a 5 figure price increase will they still support it?

We are paying the price regardless. The trick is to get to the point where we can’t get out of paying what is due, because we’d try to weasel out of it even if climate change accelerated from doing so.

The only analogy I can think fitting is the condo building collapse in Miami where the condo board and residents were wringing their hands over $15 millions of dollars of work that needed to be done right up until catastrophic failure. While arguably unaffordable, it would’ve been cheaper than the deaths of 150+ people.

>The only analogy I can think fitting is the condo building collapse in Miami where the condo board and residents were wringing their hands over $15 millions of dollars of work that needed to be done right up until catastrophic failure. While arguably unaffordable, it would’ve been cheaper than the deaths of 150+ people.

While lamentable, I don't see why people will react any different re: climate policy. Of course people will say 'Yes I support policy to prevent condo collapse.' These same people will, as demonstrated, say 'No do not spend my money to prevent condo collapse.'

I'll take the bet they will. 45 °C is a point where the reasonable person is not wondering if climate change is real or worth doing something about any more.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6084203

> The people (i.e. voters) overwhelmingly support action to limit climate change. That's the reason those laws are politically viable in the first place.

A poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs research found that 57 percent of Americans would vote for a $1 fee added to their monthly electricity bill to “combat climate change,” but only 28 percent would agree to pay an additional $10 per month.

The question began with $1, then $10, and rose after that in $10 increments, but a majority of those polled opposed every amount more than $1. By the time the figure reached $100 per month, just 16 percent said yes and 82 percent said no.

https://apnews.com/article/8e6baa6c2d3badeb4e91b6e6d078a5c0

I wouldn’t support a flat fee either since it wouldn’t incentivize less use of power or better energy sources. With that type of proposal you pay more, even if you’re trying to do good.

Here’s an example alternative proposal: a $10/gallon gas tax, with all proceeds distributed to everyone evenly. If you use less gas than average you win, if you use more than average you lose.

And what percent of the population do you think supports a $10/gallon gasoline tax? Just to bring things back into reality, we have "strong opposition to a 15 cent gas tax increase" https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2019/11/06/poll-shows-s...

2/3 of Americans oppose increasing gas taxes https://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/gas-tax-poll-090412

which leads to political realities such as "Democrats have turned solidly against gas taxes" in 2021 https://thehill.com/homenews/house/559063-democrats-have-tur...

Meanwhile, we have people fantasizing about banning things and massive gas tax increases, but the only way to make that politically popular is to ban only in the distant future and to avoid fuel tax increases.

Seriously, what's popular is more research and support for cheaper alternatives. There is a consensus around that, and only around that. Anyone outside that consensus is in a small minority.

Defaults are powerful things. The default is now that new fuel powered cars cannot be sold in 2035.

Manufacturers aren’t going to do nothing in the hopes that literally every country on earth elects someone that is petrol friendly. Even if Canada has a change, if the US, UK, EU, etc all enact similar laws, they aren’t going to make IC engines for just Canada and electric everywhere else. Their entire game is economies of scale.

"Waited long enough?" Battery cost/range has just become viable enough for a larger portion of the population to even consider an EV - starting an electric push even as recently as 3 years ago wouldn't have made a considerable difference in market share. The governments of Canada/US should look into subsidizing charging stations if they want to make a mark in the near term.

Tesla invested >$500 million in global Supercharger charging stations and have been building the Model S since 2012. The Mach E from Ford is relatively new, and the F150 Lightning hasn’t even been built yet (where I can go buy one). Legacy automakers dragged their feet the entire way. Nissan’s LEAF was a weak attempt side by side with a Model 3.

Musk swung for the fences while everyone else was lazy. He’s still full speed ahead expanding as quickly as capital markets will allow. (yes yes I know, say what you will about his character, he gets shit done)

I agree. Companies that did invest in environmentally friendly technology should be rewarded, and companies that didn't should be punished.

Legacy automakers had tons of time to innovate and switch to more environmentally friendly tech, but they chose not to. The government should accelerate their demise if it can help the environment, they can either get it together in a few years and improve their EVs, or they can sell their assets and expertise to Tesla or other electric manufacturers when the policy causes them to go bankrupt.

Hmm I wouldn’t say the Leaf was weak. A short range battery electric car makes sense in Japan and they were very popular in Silicon Valley where commuters could charge at the office.

Seemed like a great way to get started in the industry and unlike every other conventional automaker Nissan started in 2011 when Tesla was the only other major player. And unlike the Teslas at the time, the Leaf was affordable.

EDIT: Took a quick look at sales figures. In 2014 Nissan sold roughly twice as many leafs as Teslas sold in the US according to the following links, though Tesla rapidly grew beyond that while leaf sales slowed. https://carsalesbase.com/us-nissan-leaf/ https://carsalesbase.com/us-tesla/

And one huge reason is that auto manufacturers haven’t started devoting serious resources to EVs until recently. Technological progress isn’t preordained — we decide where the advancements will be.

I mostly agree, this is always my thought about this stuff. As you say, it is so far in the future that a new government will be in power, and can freely reverse these decisions. Or we'll just end up there anyways because that's the trajectory we are already on.

Something more immediate would have a bigger impact, probably a tax, but taxes don't often work in politician's favour. We have rebate incentives for electric cars, but that only really only helps to swallow the price difference. We can't rely on peoples morals only unfortunately.

Jung called that "the provisional life" or you could call it "provisional living." Something a lot of dieters and addicts do. "My life'll be swell after I quit heroin tomorrow!" You get to enjoy the security of knowing you're gonna do something about the problem, without the hassle of actually doing it. Quitting is far enough in the future that there's no discomfort from it, but because it's "coming," you can let go of your guilt, relax and enjoy one more fix!

How far into the future would be both meaningful and realistic before banning the main product of a huge, mass market, capital intensive industry?

Anything past the current government's remaining term (< 5 years) can easily be dismissed as "unrealistic" by the next government, meanwhile at the moment pure electric alternatives to some types of vehicles, e.g. offroad SUVs, either don't exist, or at best are in the blindly-preorder-for-next-year-fingers-crossed stage.

With legislation like this popping up in many different jurisdictions, it is extremely unlikely that car manufacturers will just sit around in their lobbying chairs and hope for all the bans to be reversed everywhere. Every manufacturer sees the writing on the wall already thanks to such laws.

By all measures, it is better to pass this law now with a 15 year deadline than in 10 years but with a 5 year deadline. Passing it now with a 5 year deadline, or passing it 10 years ago with a 15 year deadline are not on the table. But the latter option will be on the table 10 years from now, since this law has just passed.

>How far into the future would be both meaningful and realistic before banning the main product of a huge, mass market, capital intensive industry?

Infinite or undefined.

You can't just ban the technology that underpins most transportation (which underpins the economy). It doesn't work like that. You can try. It won't work out well. You have to replace it with something better and let the lions share of the changeover be voluntary. Only then is it realistic to ban the remnants.

You can do this through taxes. Right now there are tax breaks on green options. In the future have an increasing tax penalty on non-green options.

It will work out just fine. What's "better" in transportation is shaped to a large degree by government's policies, from taxes to incentives to investment in basic research and infrastructure to promises of future bans, yes.

True, the eradication of fossil fuel powered cars could have instead been achieved by means of an effective carbon tax. However, in Canada this is not politically feasible, the feds barely managed to pass a very small carbon tax that will not significantly affect demand on fossil fuel cars. Banning gas powered cars wholesale on the other hand is much more acceptable thanks to the 14 year lead time. Manufacturers are now incentivized to make their electric cars better, or risk losing business in many countries to others who do.

Leaded fuel, asbesthos, trans fats, supersonic planes, and a ton of other things were once legal, yet their replacements weren't "better" when seen through an egoistic free-market lens (asbesthos is still used in countries that didn't ban it).

You think the government has your best interest in heart. How endearing.

> You have to replace it with something better and let the lions share of the changeover be voluntary. Only then is it realistic to ban the remnants.

Yeah, but replacing it with something better needs a lot of capital-intensive work to be done first.

The industry has a lot more incentive to perform that work now if the government sends a strong signal that only companies that did the work (eg switched to producing electric cars) will make money in the future.

Well that's why we have subsidies on electric car though. In canada it's almost a 10k$ discount so it does give all carmakers an incentive to fill that niche because the increased cost of an electric vehicule is partially covered by the gov.

'Smoking Free' bars were rare until smoking was banned.

Regulatory edicts have immense power to move needles.

Canada has several, major industries that have to make massive adjustments, a 'timeline' is very helpful to manage the transition.

The transition to what? Where is the alternative?

Don't you think that if the alternative was feasible it would have already been implemented without coercion?

Not necessarily. Making a technology of this magnitude "feasible" requires substantial investments on a scale that requires buy-in from politics and the populous.

Just look at how cars got where they are now. If cities had not invested in converting cobbled streets into asphalt streets [1], if nations had not invested in building highway networks, cars would not have been "feasible", as you say.

[1] In hindsight, asphalt may look like the only plausible solution for city streets, but it actually causes a bunch of problems with drainage and microclimate because it completely seals the surface. In cities where traffic relies more heavily on walking, bicycles and trams, you will see more cobbled streets because they work better in these aspects.

"Don't you think that if the alternative was feasible it would have already been implemented without coercion?"

No, probably not.

It would be very easy for industry to just chug along cars with combustion engines.

Nobody owns the market, and certainly nobody controls the vast value chains and incidental markets.

The more obvious issues are batteries and electricity production and distribution.

Tesla would not be possible without constant 'Climate Change Marketing' from government and other sources - and - subsidies, which are a non-market force.

There are too many variables to switch, and it works better if there is some kind of 'plan' - regulatory apparatus help shape that.

The 'lighter the better' I think in this case the timing of the announcement and phase out is just about right.

This comment almost seems to willfully satirize libertarianism. Does it follow that if a goal hasn't been accomplished without a state mandate, it must be impossible?

It might be in this particular case, but to be convincing we would need to show our work, or at least make a more specific argument.

There's a simpler change than just banning: Start now, with all vehicles priced at over $150,000, and reduce that threshold by $10,000 each year.

This forces the tech to be implemented in the biggest and most profitable vehicles, before filtering down to the mass market and eventually the bargain segments.

This isn't very true though.

The bans are a very hard regulatory signal that the automakers have to contend with, that they likely would not otherwise - and it's a 'giant anchor' in the timeline for transformation that all industries can operate around. A 'date' is a form of regulatory clarity which is what businesses actually want.

The 'original bans' i.e. Denmark/California etc. make the most impact, because they're the markets that force the change, but the follow-ons matter.

15 years is actually not that long in the industry life cycle for automotive. 'Changing everything' about cars is going to be a big deal.

More importantly - it's not the auto-makers that will struggle: it's the electricity grid, battery makers, energy producers - because we have no idea what that means.

Where is the National/Provincial plan to upgrade the Energy Grid to be able to support this? Well now everyone is on notice.

Canada I think timed it correctly because I don't think bans on cars would be appropriate until there is material visibility into a solution. Electric cares are just now crossing the threshold of regular, viable utility to now is the time to flip the switch.

More important that what you are mentioning is the fact that a ban does nothing. Is actually the opposite of doing, it's the prevention a certain type of action.

OK, you are going to ban the use of fuel-powered cars, where is your alternative? What did you exactly do with the ban? Did you create a different massively feasible type of personal transportation?

This kind of actions make me sick. They provide nothing, they accomplish nothing, they just pretend that they can waterboard creativity out of people.

They may not "waterboard creativity out of people", but they provide incentives for affected companies to properly fund R&D into alternatives (both on the technical level, like alternate propulsion systems, and on the business level, like moving from a selling-vehicles business model to a mobility-as-a-service business model).

Bans this far into the future are the only thing that's practical. Now that a line has been drawn in the sand it's easier for people, in both the public and private sectors, to successfully advocate for further investment into the infrastructure and technology research needed to make this transition happen. This then creates a snowball effect where manufacturers and consumers naturally gravitate away from internal combustion engines. By the time 2035 arrives this will be a non-event.

Not only that but they are late to the game.

Quebec already pledged to do so a while ago [0], and joined California in setting tougher emission standards (above what their respective federal governments are doing) for more than a decade now[1]. Seems the feds are playing catch-up.

The previous administration even tried to put an end to it. [2]

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-canada-emissions-id...

[1] https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/classic/cc/capand...

[2] https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2019/11/californias-cap-and-tra...

A real challenge with Canada is that we are a big, diverse country that is dominated politically and population wise by 2-3 cites. The concerns and experiences of the city dwellers have little in common of smaller towns away from Toronto, or remote areas. So we get rules that exist to appease affluent urbanites that basically shaft the rural folk. I think the US has a similar problem, but we are way more sparsely populated and the federal government has more power. I have always been a federalist, but I think it's time to start talking about how we break up the country, so we don't have remote rule over people that it does nothing for.

The US is the opposite - due to the Electoral College and shape of many state districts, rural areas have a much larger, disproportionate share of voting power than urban areas.

At the federal level rural states are over-weighted (because Senate) but at the state level the cities run the state.

It always amuses me when urban and inner suburb dwellers want big federal government. They'd have a lot more latitude to run things their way if the commerce clause got reigned in and the 10A got some respect.

How is this true in red southern states like Louisiana, TN etc?

Because the populations of their cities and suburbs are red (remember, we're talking at the margins here) to the point that required items on the official blue platform that blue candidates must espouse in order to get blue funding are deal breakers to them (at the margins).

HN always has a wide blind spot for how much the average person's beliefs are mixed and matched from the left and right. Ask the office janitor or delivery truck driver what he/she thinks about abortion and LGBTQ rights and then ask them what they think about min-wage and healthcare. Odds are you'll get points from both parties represented. Red states are reliably red because those people reliably care about things from the red platform more than they care about things from the blue platform and blue states are blue for the same reason.

> Because the populations of their cities and suburbs are red (remember, we're talking at the margins here)

That's just demonstrably false. Take a look at this election results map of Texas: https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/texas/ . Or this one of Tennessee: https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/tennessee/ . Or this one of Arkansas: https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/arkansas/ .

In every case the largest cities voted for Biden. Texas is particularly stark because all of the top 4 cities, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin went for Biden.

1/3rd of the top 15 cities in the US are in Texas, but thanks to a good-sized rural citizenship, nearly best-in-the-country gerrymandering, and innovative voter suppression, the state is still deeply red-controlled.

Much larger than urban areas? No. That’s clearly not true when 5 or 6 most populous states pretty much determine the winner.

It clearly is true when, of the 3 times in the past 30 years that Republicans won the presidency that they only won the popular vote once, and in those cases Democrats won urban areas by overwhelming margins.

But rural areas don’t have more power than urban areas.

Just off the top of my head, big cities include Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax, Hamilton, Kitchener. You make it sound like Toronto and Vancouver are walled cities in the middle of a vast wasteland, but most Canadians live in places with >100k people, and even more can drive to a mall within 20 minutes.

Do you want to break up the country so all the money and people are in one part, and you and a bunch of dirt roads are in the remaining part?

> Do you want to break up the country so all the money and people are in one part, and you and a bunch of dirt roads are in the remaining part?

Yes

> a bunch of dirt roads are in the remaining part

If you've never been, do yourself a favor. The parts out west with the dirt roads are the best parts.

Here's a little road trip I took late last fall on "the dirt roads" - https://youtu.be/pyQMt8om9Io?t=973

I grew up on a dirt road in rural Canada. I'd be happy to live in such an area and have a government that takes the local population's needs into account. The GP's dismissive attitude of "you and a bunch of dirt roads" is exactly what the rural population is up against.

A country made of "dirt roads in rural Canada" will stop looking like "dirt roads in rural Canada" in short order - no industry, few jobs, and every teenager with high school diploma will try to escape to an industrial nation next door.

You're taking being part of Canada as granted and then complaining that Canada is ruled by the wishes of the majority of Canadians.

>no industry, few jobs, and every teenager with high school diploma will try to escape to an industrial nation next door.

This already happens to Canada generally (it's a college degree, but that's just the new high school diploma these days). 1 in 47 Canadians (800,000 of 37.5M total, working population 24.5M) is an expat living in the US, because their quality of life (not just in pay; less interference from nosy neighbors has a positive nonzero monetary value associated with it) is substantially increased by doing that.

It's also worth noting that the provinces that comprise that part of the country are also net contributors to the economy; Ontario and Quebec, for all their population, are still net receivers of equalization payments in a way the supposedly massive tax base from Toronto and Montreal doesn't offset.

Of course, it's not like those places have any incentive to improve, because their entire existence is based around looting the better provinces. This deal is getting worse all the time, but since it's also apparently a Canadian trait to just sit there and take it...

The dirt roads their food travels on no less. Urbanites are truly shortsighted in their beliefs that the rest of the world depends on them, when the opposite is true. As if history does not show that cities come from successful settled areas rather than the opposite.

You can basically remove Ottawa, Kitchener, & Halifax from that list; they’re essentially small towns with one big attraction. Calgary & Edmonton are basically the same city too anyways.

>Do you want to break up the country so all the money and people are in one part, and you and a bunch of dirt roads are in the remaining part?

Well, that's the big secret about Canada: the place with the bunch of dirt roads is actually where all the money Ontario and Quebec need to pay their bills comes from (https://i.imgur.com/HnmVWkT.jpeg).

Guess the Federal government should have been paying attention to the economic conditions in its own provinces and the provinces to its East, but then again why should they bother when they can just loot the productive "dirt road" Western provinces (of both cash and political sovereignty that should by all rights be buying) instead?

Or you could acknowledge that the rural folk will have to make more changes to their lifestyles than the city folk will in order to reduce emissions.

Should they bear all the costs? No. The city folk are consumers for those products created by carbon intensive ag. They should pay too, in higher prices.

If you're all about doing whatever you're doing, and screw anyone who wants to tell you what to do, then yeah, go ahead and try and set up your sovereign fiefdom somewhere.

But expect some pushback from others who want to actually address these problems.

Rural folk employed in industries such as agriculture and forestry are going to feel the effects of climate change the most. You'd think rural folk would be the ones fighting for climate action. Meanwhile, I don't think many urbanites in the retail or service sectors need to worry that their jobs will disappear with a changing climate, yet they're the ones voting for change.

As someone who lives in Prince George, BC, the wilful disregard for the environment by the locals given the town's dependence on lumber is incredible.

The reality is just the opposite: urban areas produce the majority of greenhouse gases and consume the majority of energy.

If GP doesn't want to be part of the country, and others in his area agree, why would you stop them? Do you not believe in consent of the governed?

You won't BE addressing them in a city, you will be addressing them in a field or a mine. You will either have to live the standard of living you are apparently unwittingly espousing, or you won't be addressing what you see as the problem.

I fully agree with you, as someone who has lived in both of those cities and the boonies. Considering that 80% of the population is urbanized however (and another 10% rural in the Windsor/BC lowlands) the government really should cater to urbanites. Rural people are just going to have to rely on support from the provincial governments, or lobby to join the US.

Your rationale is the primary reason why the US has the electoral system it does. So the federalists wouldn't dominate the country.

48% of Canada's population is in 5 metro areas alone. So it shouldn't be surprising - when majority rules - that city dwellers are dominating politically.

I don't think your depiction of who holds the power in Canada is entirely accurate. The power you are speaking of is wielded more by suburbs. In Ontario that area is referred to as "the 905": the regions of Halton, Peel, York and Durham. When it comes to issues like car ownership, I suspect that many suburbanites want their SUVs as much as rural folks do.

I also don't think this legislation "shaft[s] the rural folk". Climate change is coming for all of us. On Tuesday we recorded the highest temperature ever in Canada, 47.9 C! Speaking optimistically, I would like to think that Canada is taking actions to protect all Canadians.

Unfortunately, the truth is that we need far more potent legislation than this. But there are many sacred cows in Canada when it comes to meaningful action on climate change — such as actual cows. If Canada were, for instance, to tax agricultural products like meat and dairy in such a way that their climate impact was no longer externalized, that would indeed be seen as "shafting the rural folk". But I don't see that happening any time soon.

I live in Duhram. Dodge Rams and F150s as far as the eye can see.

With vehicles such as the recently revealed electric F150, they can still have those cars to rip down the 401

I plan on purchasing one myself.

> I also don't think this legislation "shaft[s] the rural folk"

And then you proceed to list a bunch of reasons why your religion considers it a moral imperative to shaft the rural folk.

This is how US "blue states" work.

At least according to the rural population.

2021 being the new 1791 makes me very happy.

Please god make King County (Seattle) its own city-state. We've had enough.

Had it with these Federalists. Why did we even rebel if it wasn't to say 'screw you' to Georgie. I'm not interested in replacing a a single king with a panel of busy bodies. I'm interested in 'No Kings'.

Now excuse me while I tend my marijuana farm while being blisteringly drunk.

I'd really rather see something like this handled as a tax on gas cars in the big 5 cities (or maybe 10).

These are going to be the places where alternatives are the most viable.

This is an interesting idea. I think a congestion tax would do much more to address driving generally in places where there are lots of alternatives. If governments wants to add "green" exceptions then so be it. This keeps it local, if it's mandated at the municipal level.

I don't think the answer is giving more power to the federal government, in both cases, since most of the votes will be coming from these 2-3 cities.

The nice thing about ICE cars is they can get passed down the value chain easily. Middle class family buys a new car, drives it for 5 years or so, trades it in for a new car, and the used car is sold to a poorer family but pretty much works just as well. Do electrics work the same way? I imagine the battery performs significantly worse after 5 years than when new.

Tesla vehicles have hundreds of thousands of miles on them with reasonable amounts of degradation.

https://electrek.co/2020/06/06/tesla-battery-degradation-rep...

https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-dat...

and even a minor fender benders result in cars being declared a total loss due to Teslas fantastic repair ecosystem.

Insurers still insure them so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At obscene premiums.

If your car loan requires collision insurance, the dealer should have to show the monthly insurance premium wherever they show you a monthly payment.

But they don't have to, so they don't.

Our 2015 Leaf has a “charge indicator” and a “capacity indicator”, each with 12 segments. The “capacity indicator” just dropped one notch to 11, but this hasn’t had a huge impact on range - certainly it still gets us around the city, which is why we bought it.

Nissan estimates the batteries will outlive the cars by about 10-12 years: https://insideevs.com/news/351314/nissan-leaf-battery-longev...

> Nissan estimates the batteries will outlive the cars by about 10-12 years

I was about to make a joke about Nissan's build quality, but Nissan beat me to it...

> The company sees the LEAF's reasonable life at about 10 years.

Yikes, the average age of a vehicle on US roads is 12+ years. I know they're in the business of selling new cars, but damn.

Nissan is intentionally building disposable cars for people of lesser means and credit scores.

I don't know where you got that info.

I wouldn't want to be the company out there that doesn't want to have low, and middle income, owners for their electric vechicles.

If Volkswagen didn't sell low priced, well engineered vehicles to the 99% of us struggling; we would not know their name today.

It's been in their public financial documents for 15yr now. They just wrap it up with softer words like "customers who prioritize value" to not offend white collar sensibilities. They're basically Chrysler of Japan. Nothing wrong with that. Someone's gotta sell those cars.

Someone has to sell reasonably priced cars to the masses.

If the other guys, especially Tesla, dosen't start going down this path; I can guarantee electric vechicles will be another footnote in history. (That might be too harsh? There will always be rich guys who don't mind overpaying for vechicles.)

Don't get me started on Chrysler. They are an old dying car company whom probally shouldn't have sold out to Fiat. Chrysler made some decent cars/trucks over the years. They are the example of a big stupid company.

With an electric car you are buying a electric motor, controller, computers, a bunch of sensors, actuators, and programming.

There is no reason to jack up the price. There will be a company that eventually put's Teslas to shame. We are at 2 months in to babies life.

I like Tesla's. I'm looking for a salvaged one to do a convert. There are a lot of guys like me who want an electric, but aren't paying for gimmicky stuff.

I am hoping the price of batteries drops so much; buying a new battery for a used electric vechicle is trivial.

I will never go electric if I gave to fork out a huge some of money every 10 years for a battery. Right now, the longevity of batteries is looking better than I anticipated.

(I keep vechicles for 20 plus years, and do all my own maintance, and repair.)

Figure out where we're going to get the metals for all the batteries it will take to create the world these dreamers want. You'll soon see that the entire scheme is fantasy.

If it really were about shifting energy usage from fossil fuels to a "renewable" power grid, there would be an equal enthsiasm for electrifying all home and hot water heating.

There isn't, for two main reasons:

1. Making resistive elements in a box will not enrich any mineral companies, perputrate planned obselecence, nor maintain R+D departments.

2. It would be very easy and cheap to do, and when the resulting droves of people convert to electric heating, it would very quickly become apparent that our grid just cannot handle the extra load.

> Do electrics work the same way?

I'm sorry, your vehicle is no longer safe to drive because it is not receiving software updates anymore. Too bad.

It makes me really sad that there were basically two true EVs mass-produced for highway-speed use (the Tesla Roadster and the Nissan Leaf) before we permanently and irreversibly transitioned to "smartphone on wheels". I will not be buying any of those.

Yes, and battery replacements aren't cheap.

If electric cars are truly the future and will win outright, why the heavy handed approach to ban alternatives? The people most effected by this will be those with lower incomes who are less likely to have a home with space to charge an electric vehicle. And they’ll feel it a few years after the ban when the used car market dries up.

Canada is getting ready for an election, this sends the message the government wants to send

I can't speak for the Canadian government - but to me this isn't about the better technology, it's about not cooking the planet. Given that 82% of electricity [0] is from Hydro, Nuclear, and other renewables, it's a pretty easy move for Canada to make.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Canada

I think we'll burn most of the oil regardless of electric car adoption. It's just too convenient of a power source not to use.

And people with higher incomes will just continue to buy "commercial" trucks like they do now and bypass this whole thing. Every time they ban cars, and not all vehicles, the car makers reclassify whatever they are making to fit that definition.

Small SUVs/CUVs and even some station wagons are considered "light trucks" to evade EPA and safety requirements. There's a reason Ford and others doesn't make sedans anymore. It's not just because people all want CUVs, it's because CUVs were cheaper as they didn't have to meet all the same requirements. So they marketed the shit out of their CUVs because they had higher profit margins.

If they don't ban commercial trucks too, I see Ford, GM and RAM releasing more and more 'commercial' trucks, and people buying them as family haulers.

Presumably because they don't believe it's safe to leave the fate of the species in the hand of the market (or at least they want to appear that way.)

> why the heavy handed approach to ban alternatives

Because we're all stuck in a gigantic tragedy of the commons that directly leads to the end of human civilization as we know it, and it's fucking time we start acting like it.

Many auto manufacturers will be suspending production of ICE cars and light trucks before that. It actually seems more like a policy after the fact than anything else.

It’s helpful to lock the changes in, just as we’ll bulldoze coal electrical generation plants and not go back.

What makes you so sure?

I'm doubtful that enough people would buy an automatic ICE car vs an electric IF the variables involved in owning, operating the vehicle were the same. That said, there are a lot of edge cases that would slow that road by another decade at least I'd guess. But for brand new cars? They tend to be a luxury anyway, so it's plausible.

Right now it's still not even feasible for someone who parks on the street to own an Electric vehicle imo; unless you arrange your life around it.

Interesting history of the Canadian automotive industry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoUdNi-WuGE

I wonder what the plan is for the electric grid to be able to support all of this. The long lead time provides an opportunity to prep for it

https://archive.is/TOEuJ

omg barely 14 years awa, there's simply no time !

Why not in 2235. Empty promises for tomorrow. Laughable.

'How do we power cars' is a red herring question.

Cars are a symptom of sprawl, and sprawl is exceeding it's scaling limits. Canada is well past the limits of traffic and noise and death by collisions that are tolerated by nations with happy citizens.

If we don't fix the egregious shenanigans in our housing market, by 2035 property owners will be a heridary caste. When rent and food cost 100% of median income who is buying cars?

And all that electric power comes from....where?

Just look at California if you want to see how all of this getting rid of fossil fuels and relying solely on "green" energy works.

As a Washington state resident, I'm unfamiliar. What's the issue in California besides wildfires from aging delivery infrastructure?

Looking at the stats for Ontario's grid[1]...

* 49% Nuclear

* 24% Gas

* 23% hydroelectric

* 2% wind

I'm happy with a ~25% non-renewable car vs a 100% non-renewable car.

---

[1] https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html

To jump on with some older governmental stats.

Canada overall in 2018 was 61% hydro, 15% Uranium, 9% Nat Gas, 8% Coal, 5% wind, for 81% renewable. [1]

BC in 2015 was 86% (!) hydro, 2% wind, and 6% biomass, for 94% renewable. [2]

It's not like renewable energy is something new here.

---

[1] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr... [2] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-commoditie...

(For both, diagrams/tables are on the right hand side column)

We don't call it a hydro bill for nothing. Less than 20% came from fossil fuels in 2018 (latest data I could find easily).

As for increased demand, well, as much as we harp on BC Hydro for the project costs etc., site C will cover the demand here. I know there are other ongoing hydro projects in Newfoundland and Manitoba.

So, the power demand should be covered. Whether that causes some cost increases remains to be seen, but it's not like we're going to have no power or be burning fossil fuel for it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com