Can anyone elaborate on why Canada has 100% tariffs on EVs? I think I know why the US does: lobbying by American automakers. Did the US threaten Canada unless they followed suit a long time ago, and is this change a sign that leverage is now lost?
On the one hand, there's a very strong push to reduce car usage. In Paris, the speed limit has been reduced to 30 km/h, 50 on the ring road, many lanes and parking have been removed to improve bike infrastructure. Then, when sales drop and jobs are on the line, those same people are absolutely shocked.
Now, personally, I'm all for reducing traffic in cities. I'm not particularly keen on breathing exhaust all day every day or getting run over by two tons of steel. Sure, a whole debate can be had on specific use cases, people living where there's no public transit, etc. But my point is that you can't, on the one hand, push for something, then be angry when you obtain the consequences.
Up until a few years ago, there was a very hard push for diesel engines. Local companies invested a lot in those. Now these engines are practically banned, and even gasoline ones aren't faring too well. So, automakers have to scramble to move to electric, but it takes time. While other companies, built from the ground up to this, already have models head and shoulders above what we can produce. And politicians, true to nature, come up with all kinds of weird incentives. They've recently introduced a weight tax on vehicles [0]. On the face of it, it's an "SUV-tax" to limit "gas-guzzlers". Cue surprised faces when they realize a Tesla weighs as much as an SUV (I'm talking European models here, so no absurd Escalades or what have you).
[0] This is France, so laws have exceptions. Electrics get an "allowance", which basically reduces the mass considered for the tax. But it's not entirely clear how that works. Ditto for hybrids.
Most politicians aren't independent: they are members of parties and, generally, push for the same kind of policies, "the party line".
The Paris mayor is a member of a left party, the Parti Socialiste (PS). The same people who tend to cry foul when plants close down and people are laid off. This party is also more or less in some form of alliance with the Green Party who's also very much against cars. In the lower chamber no party has an absolute majority, but through (shaky) alliances, "the left" has the most seats (still no absolute majority, though). Also, many members of the President's party used to be members of the PS (including President Macron).
So, I'm pretty confortable lumping all these people together, since, broadly-speaking, they defend the same policies, even though there may be the occasional difference.
Up to you though.
Umm, it doesn't? I'm assuming you're comparing Tesla non-SUV's to other SUV's. Tesla's aren't light, but they're lighter than most comparably sized SUV's. For example, a model 3 weighs 3800 pounds but a BMW X3 weighs 4200 pounds.
The limit is very low, 1800 kg (4000 lbs) initially and it's lowered gradually to 1500 kgs (3300 lbs).
My 2005 gasoline-powered mercedes c coupé weighed 1600 kg. My dad's hybrid corolla weighs over 1500 kgs.
References: https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F3...
The markets are heavily intertwined and have been for decades. E.g. Ford Canada is just as old as Ford in the US.
Canada almost certainly does not want to allow Chinese made vehicles to undercut their local producers. Any talk of this is just posturing and threats in the ongoing trade negotiations.
The old integrated cross-border auto manufacturing system is over. Stellantis is already moving production of Jeep from Brampton to Illinois, and others are expected to follow.
Now, since his American majesty decided to throw away the Canadian auto industry we don't have anything to protect. Better to make deals with the Chinese now, before the whole American auto industry is destroyed.
As to how much of which, that's a good question, and not one I've seen any answers to.
Both China and the US know this and are playing cat and mouse with us, fanning tensions, and the US is outright funding western separatists and encouraging grievance politics around their resource exports. The US has aggressively tariffed manufactured goods coming out of central Canada (and forestry out of BC) while leaving potash and oil & gas out of AB/SK untouched while simultaneously outright funding far right groups there that are are agitating against Canadian unity.
At the same time China has slapped tariffs on canola and made it clear that EV tariffs are part of the calculus there.
I don't see an easy way out of this. As a resident of Ontario I'd be sad to see the auto sector here go, and it would lead to massive economic devastation here ... but it feels entirely inevitable at this point. Not just because of tariffs but because the actual products from the Big3 automakers are increasingly mediocre and what they're producing here is on the whole not fine, sustainable, products anyways.
Car parts, and Honda & Toyota plants are another story, maybe.
So a lot of incentive for Canada to side with America on this. But Trump blew up that relationship, and this is the consequence.
> The announcement came after encouragement by U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Cabinet ministers Sunday.
- AP News, August 26, 2024
https://apnews.com/article/canada-china-evs-tariffs-0cd68ba7...
This is evidently not ideal. I bore witness to manufacturing completely leave my hometown, third tier city over the span of a decade. Today, there is little economic opportunity in that town, with massive drug abuse, and petty crime. It used to be a nice place, and working in a factory earned you an honest living. Unfettered trade with China killed places like this, destroying an entire generation.
At the end of the day, wanting electric cars from China depends on your values, do you want incredibly cheap electric vehicles, even if it means destroying an entire industry that the largest province in the country relies upon? Or do you want to maintain a functional manufacturing base that is critical to political and social stability?
I'm not happy about the choices. But c'mon PP?
The bank of Canada (head) again warned about the lack of productivity of the Canadian worker.
I think Canada needs new leadership. Canada has had the same leadership for the last 10 years.
Lutnick has already stated that America wants all vehicles for sale in America to be built in America. Any vehicles built outside America will be tariffed.
Sure, the Chinese will destroy Canadian any auto-manufacturing left for the domestic market, but it is the Trump administration's stated goal to dismantle the Canadian auto-sector, which is happening now.