I don’t get this argument. Europe makes and exports EVs. Japan and Korea do too. Buy from them if you don’t want something US branded. Build EVs in Canada.
Canada does not have the technical knowledge to build EVs. We make trucks with 1960s technology, or assemble vehicles designed in Japan. There is no point in making EVs in Canada when sales are barely 6%. The problem here is not manufacturers, it's Canadian men who define their masculinity by the size of truck they buy, and then politicians who subsidize fuel for them.
Canada should not be doing business with either country. When we can, we should decouple from both entirely.
No need to make nice with hostile dictatorships. Especially when those hostile dictatorships are constantly attacking our country and citizens on a regular basis.
Buy a bike. Electric cars are not the answer.
Right, a bike. That's going to help me bring all those groceries home, it'll be an okay form of transport when it's raining or -30°C, when I need to go across the city on an errand or appointment, when I need to give someone a lift, when I'm visiting a relative who lives the next city over, and so forth and so on.
Easy solutions to all of these complaints:
bring all those groceries home
Panniers, baskets, racks, cargo bikes if you have very large grocery runs
when it's raining
Wear a rain coat, put fenders on the bike
or -30°C
Wear warm clothes
when I need to give someone a lift
Go for a bike ride with your friend, or call them a cab if they are not capable of it
when I'm visiting a relative who lives the next city over
Rent a car, take a bus or train, or if you are feeling frisky, do an extra long bike ride there and stay overnight
and so forth and so on
All your concerns are very easily addressed, but still glosses over the fact that nobody has said that you should sell your car and do everything by bike. Replace the trips you can with bike rides and you will have more joy in your life while also helping the environment.
That only works in the most urban locations. There is no way I am getting anywhere with a bike where I live. Even my horse would be a better choice but also that is impossible.
If you truly live in an area too remote to access any shops or services by bicycle or e-bike, then my post is not meant for you. Most people in Canada live in urban areas and are capable of replacing some car trips with bicycle trips.
Ages ago I used to live downtown. I was biking even less. It’s not safe most of the time. Let alone when hauling stuff. Very few people would actually be able to (mostly) replace a car with a bike. There are also many issues (time, physical abilities etc.) with actual meaningful use of bikes. I am not talking the odd bike ride to get a new book or so. Our country, climate, society and city design isn’t made for lots of biking. Should you bike as much as you can? Sure but it’s not a viable sub for cars.
You clearly have not ever ridden a bike in winter.
I ride my bike every winter, it's really not a big deal if you wear warm clothes. The biggest issues arise when cities dont plow bike paths
I have 4 kids. Comments telling me to put their groceries and hockey gear in a basket are hilarious.
And glossing over the weather with "wear a raincoat" or "wear warm clothing", too. People are aware this is the canada@lemmy.ca community, yes? A lot of Canadian cities get weather where it's downright deadly to be outside for extended periods.
If you enjoy biking and you can make it work for you in your personal circumstances, sure, by all means go ahead and bike. But don't car-shame those who don't.
I lived in Northern Canada for most of my life. -40 to -50 without a wind chill was normal. We put on warm clothes to go outside for extended periods.
I will car shame anyone in a major city with a vehicle. Mass transit exists.
Not even a joke, someone on a bike was struck by a car and killed just a few blocks away from me this very morning; fourth one in the past few years in this area.
"Buy a bike," is such privileged shit, dude. Most people in Canada do not live in a place where bikes are a viable option. I don't have an extra three hours in my day that also puts me at substantially higher risk of bodily harm. If they're not affluent hobbyist the most common bike rider is someone who cannot afford the expense of a vehicle and are exploited much more heavily by our public transport system.
Car dependency is certainly an existential issue that manifests in Canada's city planning, cost of living, and environmental footprint. What you just said, that people's choices are the problem, is exactly the narrative the state and capitalists would like you to subscribe to. It is a systemic issue remedied only by decades of consistent advocacy and action.
Why don't you take a look at the authorities in Canadian territory that have fought tooth and nail to defend system we have for the better part of the last century?
Infrastructure is not the best for cyclists I agree and I dont blame you for feeling unsafe for riding your bike. Everyone has a different threat model though and most Canadians live in large urban areas with large and expanding bike networks that they can take advantage of. That might not mean commuting to work by bike but maybe trips like going to the grocery store or the dentist can be replaced by bike trips.
I do agree that safe cycling infrastructure is one of the largest barriers to getting people on bikes, but let's not pretend that there is some big modern day conspiracy against bike lanes. It's everyday people who fight tooth and nail against every bike lane that is proposed because they will take away parking or driving lanes. Doug Ford might have a personal vendetta against bike lanes but many many people support this vendetta and support Ford because he is trying to remove them.
I'm so tired of privileged people in the city talking down to everyone else like we don't know how cities work ("different threat models" fuck outta here with that bullshit). I've lived in cities ranging from 200k to 700k and guess what? There isn't bike infrastructure; you share the road and there's some adequate bike-lanes in affluent neighbourhoods that I don't give a shit about. In the city I'm currently in, bike-lanes share a merge with turning lanes f so nooooobody uses them because they don't want to get nailed by some douchebag in a light truck who can't even see past the steering wheel. Nobody is talking about a conspiracy, this is the reality of neoliberal politics and the ruins of suburban sprawl. When I say, "authorities" I'm referring to the systems of power that operate in opposition to workers and the land that relegates decisions for infrastructure to affluent land-owners who couldn't give a shit less about sustainability or accessibility. I also saw you put "wear warm clothes" as a response to someone saying that dangerous winter weather makes bikes impractical like you're on some Marie Antoinette shit. Don't talk to me like you understand any of this when it's obvious you haven't actually had to live in different places in this country.
Regardless of that, car-dependency makes biking distances prohibitively expensive in the one way that you clearly have never had to think about: time. I do not have the fucking time to bike to my dentist or grocery store -- even if I had a backfiets that could actually carry groceries -- when everything is spaced out to accomodate cars. It's nice that you have time for that, most people have work and responsibilites that puts their time at a premium and that makes biking a very low priority on how to live sustainably. I cannot afford to bike. Everything you've said speaks from the distorition that individual choice is a primary vector for change when we know that systemic causes for decisions, like driving instead of biking, provide more effective explanations and paths to real change. You subscribe to the very narratives that are used to reproduce this unsustainable way of life and have the gall to sit there and act like you know better than others. -
The rural parts of Canada would like to have a word. A bike ain't gonna cut it unless your young and single and living in a city.
I had a bike living in the rural parts of Canada, and used it to get everywhere within the 50-100 kms I needed to go.
And even then a lot of cities aren't set up to make bike travel easy.
Years ago, in the before times, the office I worked at was within biking distance of my house and I routinely biked there. It was nice. Then they moved the office downtown and it was either a half-hour commute by car, an hour long commute by bus, and I-don't-know-how-long-by-bike-because-fuck-that-epic-journey commute by bike. I bussed a lot, but that meant I was wasting an hour of my time each day. I wasn't fond of that. I hadn't entirely settled on which approach was better overall before Covid hit and I never went back to that office again by either route.
There happens to be a grocery store within biking distance of my house. I drive a car there anyway, because even living solo I still like to get several weeks worth of groceries when I go shopping. No way am I hauling cargo like that on a bike even if I had a trailer for it.
Both economies are too big for that to be feasible.
Kind of a tangent, but everytime I read "need a more nuanced..." In regards to regulation, from an industry person or a politician, I can't help but assume they are just trying to create some kind of loophole to massively exploit something they weren't already allowed to
The threat of Chinese EVs is absolutely necessary to support for any non traitorous Canadian.
No one has firm plans to make EVs in Canada. The threat can at very least get "best offers" of investment and commitments to Canada that might be better for Canadian economy, even if it helps destroy climate. Cannibalism was always going to be preferred over human sustainability.
Canada benefits from investment. If every other company in the world is too afraid of Trump to invest in Canada, then Canada needs China. The end. Obviously, a trade deal would include an investment deal.
Canada is a giant global auto market equal to UK for 7th place. Measured in over priced vehicles too. Significant boost to Canadian standard of living to have access to better value EVs, which are already better value cars than ICE engine alternatives. Quieter, faster, power your home in emergency, urban life quality for non drivers.
When Canada removed DST, not only did we get zero in return from US government, the tech companies that avoided the tax didn't even show any gratitude with data center or other investments in Canada. ONLY flirting with non US colonies can Canada get any investments (or genuine defense commitments) from US and its colonies.
"No one has firm plans to make EVs in Canada" - Not true, Canada had and still has Lion Electric for example. All Canadian schools should get their buses there. It's a great place for adoption to start. They also had/have trucks. Lack of support from Canada is shameful.
There was a big bet/hope on Honda battery facility. AFAIK, its on hold for perpetuity until Trump doesn't scare Honda anymore, which won't happen, because any future president/US politician will like that Honda is a sycophant to it. Lion counts a little bit, busses actually very important emissions sources, but it's relatively small part of Canadian transportation.
School buses carry 100% of future car buyers and those who experiment EVs don't go back to ICE.
Didn't Lion Electric go bankrupt?
Canada is a large car market. More importantly, vehicles manufactured here will eventually be exported to the US when their policy corrects.
And we will not round up your works in chains like they are doing in the US at the moment (eg. Hyundai).
Canada has a fascist eyeing up on its ass while a pseudo-communist, quasi-state capitalist is giving him the sultry look from across the waters. Not exactly a good position to be in.
We lifted all the tariffs on the US as a "gesture of goodwill" to Big Daddy Trump and yet keep these stupid tariffs on China that are crushing our lumber and agriculture industries into dust out west, in order to protect some token auto industry jobs building gas-guzzling American cars. Feels like we're already the 51st state and Trump is just going to make it official.
Fuck china and their spy hardware on wheels.
Have you looked at the privacy violation that is north american vehicles?
We went through this with Japan in the 80s. Get them to build here.
As for Chinese autos...is the media willfully ignorant at how close the Chinese EV industry is to implosion? BYD is months behind paying suppliers. All this is moot, in a year, most Chinese EV makers will be broke and the EVs will be in the world's landfills within 5 years.
There is no business model. No one can tool up and build EVs in Canada to fight over what MAYBE will be 25% of sales in ten years. Canadians are not buying EVs.
This is the answer. We do not have Canadian car companies.
Why build American cars in Canada? Build European and Asian ones instead.
Trade the tariffs for new factories.
Once cheap imported EVs is sold in Canada, there's no way for Canada to build its own EV industry, which would remove the demand for batteries to be made in Canada
Then it doesn’t make sense as an industry for us.
Meanwhile Americans are driving around in BYD's (Chinese cars)
I think you meant Australians
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