BYD looking to build 5-minute EV charging network in Canada

The current laws ban cars connected to/associated with China, not just their manufacturing location. Polestar was recently banned entirely even though one of their cars was manufactured in the US. BYD cars manufactured in Canada would still be banned from import.

Although decisions have been arbitrary and capricious lately, and laws haven't been consistently enforced.

NAFTA is no longer a thing, the USMCA has been in effect since 2020 which handles trade between the US, Canada, and Mexico.

The USMCA has no vehicle import cap, however Canada created a separate nationalist tariff to push for Canadian vehicle production, and since Tesla has no Canadian manufacturing facility they have to pay a tariff after the cap is hit.

I wonder if they'll have the same impact they have had in Australia, BYD's everywhere the last year or so.

As of this week the BYD Atto 1 is the cheapest new car in Australia, not (just) cheapest electric car ... cheapest car. $19,990 drive away (ie including taxes and registration). It's not the best car but in a city where most families have two cars having one of them an Atto 1 is a value choice.

My long term fear, here in the rust belt, is their corrosion protection.

I used to think like you. I'm in Norway, I currently own a EU-made BEV and my previous car was also an EU-made BEV, and to be honest I don't think it's much better with those.

Parts are quite bespoke regardless it seems given how integrated everything is now, and I'm pretty sure a lot of the parts (or at least sub-components) come from China anyway so might very well be affected by a global event.

Also, software updates aren't frequent and manufacturers are very opaque regarding support. That is, they defer you to local dealer for software support, and the dealers don't know shit.

Feels like cars have become much more disposable in the past decade or so. I'm definitely not planning on having my next car living 20+ years.

Meh. The entire geopolitical situation is unstable. If BYD is hoping to build manufacturing and infrastructure here, and they are willing to make significant investments, it makes sense for us (Canadians) to pursue that, while continuing to strengthening our ties to Europe, and making sure that any thoughts of Canada as a vassal state to the United States are consigned to the dustbin.

We had a close relationship with the United States, but we have been burned pretty badly, and it's up to the Americans to show that it's worth returning by stabilizing the rule of law, and eliminating the capricious and nonsensical trade barriers that have been implemented.

Its fairly cool because, in order to deliver current at these rates, battery storage colocation is typically required (as utility power can rarely deliver this current at these speeds). Every fast DC charge station becomes a battery storage node on the electrical grid, and in the aggregate, they become a distributed virtual power plant. They will soak up low carbon energy when cheap, and could potentially discharge for energy price arb distinct from EV fast DC charging, while also acting as distributed grid health support (frequency and voltage support).

Five minute charging and grid support to deprecate thermal generation is solved simultaneously, with batteries that continue to rapidly decline in price.

CATL now sells batteries online for $63/kWh - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49438604 - August 2026 (4 comments)

Battery costs have declined by 99% in the last three decades, making electrified transport a reality - https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline (First published in 2024; updated and rewritten in March 2026)

Five minutes is basically the same time to put gasoline in a car, and there hasn't been a huge push to have overstay fines there.

It's not about being cheap. China has been manufacturing high end goods for the global marketplace for a long time, and has also been doing if for their domestic market. The challenge is that most Canadian and American experiences with Chinese products are with white-label, top tier products like the iPhone built to high quality standards, or dollar store trash manufactured as cheaply as possible to be cheap. Until Apple started moving production, most consumers thought of the IPhone as an American product when it was really American software running on Chinese hardware (I know, it's a simplification). From everything I have read, the BYD cars that would be available here would be competitive products, not the cheapest thing you can buy, which means you should expect to pay for them, but the feature set and value will likely be higher (though I will remain skeptical till I can take one on a test drive here).

I am cautiously optimistic about this, and look forward to that test drive.

Well, depends on how cheap are people expecting?

https://www.byd.international/pricing provides an international (non-BYD affiliated) perspective.

Of course, you can't expect prices as cheap as China. There are shipping costs, local regulation compliance overheads and increased labour costs (for dealers, sales/marketing, servicing etc).

But as an example, Australia is a highly developed country with high labour costs/standards -- similar to Canada in many ways (though closer to China geographically). But without a local car industry to protect, there are no tariffs nor quotas on Chinese cars.

Recently, fierce competition between rival (Chinese) brands (BYD, MG, Geely) has resulted in the BYD Atto 1 EV becoming Australia's cheapest car at A$19,990 or US$14,279 (see: https://www.drive.com.au/news/2026-byd-atto-1-becomes-austra... ).

I expect Canada in the short-term to have prices similar to Europe/UK. With car manufacturers focusing on the premium models (which are the highest priced and hence greatest profit). But there's no reason they can't drop further as trade barriers are lifted and manufacturers are subjected to greater competition.