Canada To Ban Sale of New Fuel-Powered Cars and Light Trucks From 2035 (reuters.com) 273
Canada will ban the sale of fuel-burning new cars and light-duty trucks from 2035 in an effort to reach net-zero emissions across the country by 2050, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government said on Tuesday. Reuters reports: Only zero-emissions cars and trucks can be sold from 2035, according to a statement, adding that a mixture of investments and regulations will help industry transition toward that goal. The government also said it will set interim targets for 2025 and 2030. "We are committed to aligning Canada's zero-emission vehicles sales targets with those of the most ambitious North American jurisdictions," Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in the statement. "We will work with the United States to harmonize fuel efficiency regulations and we're investing in consumer rebates, charging stations, business tax breaks and industry transition costs," Wilkinson added.
"Canada cannot reach our greenhouse gas targets if emissions from cars, SUVs and pickups, which are currently growing, are not curtailed," said Keith Brooks, programs director at advocacy group Environmental Defence, who welcomed the move. Brooks said only 3.5% of vehicles now sold in Canada are electric and that the government needs to do more to support the market for zero-emissions vehicles.
"Canada cannot reach our greenhouse gas targets if emissions from cars, SUVs and pickups, which are currently growing, are not curtailed," said Keith Brooks, programs director at advocacy group Environmental Defence, who welcomed the move. Brooks said only 3.5% of vehicles now sold in Canada are electric and that the government needs to do more to support the market for zero-emissions vehicles.
Sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's talk. It will be several governments away by then, any one of whom can change the goal.
Talk is cheap.
Re: Sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Sure. (Score:4, Interesting)
The cities themselves can ban whatever they want.
Like in BC, the property value of gas stations is outstripping the value of having the gas station so they are disappearing. This means that if you own a gas vehicle in the city of Vancouver (or really Vancouver, Burnaby or New West for that matter) you will be pushed further and further out to fuel it.
It's really Alberta/Saskatchewan that need the push, because as a matter of practical use, most people outside the city core own oversized vehicles they don't actually need.
Even then, if you are not working in the construction industry, there is no reason to own a truck. Period. Rent one if you are doing some home renovation, but the amount of families that own like three trucks, because they like to go hunt and fish is just silly, and an EV truck is actually more practical for recreational use.
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Sure. Once I arrive in the mountains I just connect my truck to a PV solar panel and a week later I'll have enough charge to make it home. Three days if I only need enough charge to make it to the nearest rapid charger.
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Sure. Once I arrive in the mountains I just connect my truck to a PV solar panel and a week later I'll have enough charge to make it home. Three days if I only need enough charge to make it to the nearest rapid charger.
I have a Cybertruck on order and I expect to go the opposite direction, to use the truck's battery as the primary power source for my camp trailer. I may have to run to the nearest Supercharger once every week or so to top it up, but having massive power available -- enough to run the A/C in the trailer if I want -- without ever having to run a noisy, stinky generator -- sounds great to me.
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most people outside the city core own oversized vehicles they don't actually need.
I'm always hesitant to accept "don't actually need" as a reason to ban things. You might just not be seeing the need they have.
For example, I've noticed that older people often prefer higher sitting vehicles because they now find it difficult to get into and out of today's modern cars, which are built lower than the old ones. At least until you get into the really expensive cars, some of which have adjustable suspensions so that they can literally sit several inches higher in the parking lot, then lower t
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Approaching 60, most new trucks are close to impossible to easily climb in. They tower over my '98 F150 and I need a small ladder to easily climb into its box or check the oil. There's lots of mid range SUV's that would be much better for older people.
Truck before age 25 (Score:2)
Even then, if you are not working in the construction industry, there is no reason to own a truck. Period. Rent one if you are doing some home renovation
I've read of parts of the United States where people age 18 to 24 may own but not rent a light truck because insurers are unwilling to insure rental drivers under 25. Does Canada, or do Canadian provinces, have something analogous?
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I've always heard it is next to impossible to rent a vehicle if under 25 (in Canada).
Insurance here in BC is run by the government and has no age based rates, rather every year of accident free driving you get a bigger discount until it maxes out at 8 years (40%), which equals 25 yrs (maybe 26 now) old if you started driving as soon as legal.
I don't know how many kids need a truck full time and with gas in Vancouver C$1.70 (C$1.80 at the odd station with the holiday on Thursday and reopening the same day me
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Even then, if you are not working in the construction industry, there is no reason to own a truck.
Sure, I'll just tow my boat, or my fifth wheel, or my cargo trailer with the family sedan, and I'll use the sedan to drive into the backcountry. I'm sure that having only a few inches of clearance won't be a problem. </sarcasm>
There are lots of reasons for owning a truck that have nothing to do with construction work.
an EV truck is actually more practical for recreational use.
I think it will be, when it's available. Right now you can't actually buy one. I'm in line for a Cybertruck when they're available, though I do need to make sure that I can put a goosen
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T
Even then, if you are not working in the construction industry, there is no reason to own a truck. Period. Rent one if you are doing some home renovation, but the amount of families that own like three trucks, because they like to go hunt and fish is just silly, and an EV truck is actually more practical for recreational use.
You've never spent any time in New Brunswick, have you? New Brunswick isn't a rich province and the roads constantly need repair due to frost heaves, etc. The closest analogy in the US is Maine, but hardly anyone outside of Maine knows what it's like once you get off the interstate and into smaller communities, etc. They only see it during the summer and in the popular tourist spots, which are well maintained.
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It's talk.
It is the most effective form of talk: A warning to industry to change or perish. Say what you want about governments and the possibility of it being overturned, the reality is that this "talk" has already had a very real and very material effect on the automotive industry, which largely pulled its collective finger out two years ago when the cascading "talk" spread throughout many cities of the world.
It doesn't matter if the government changes the goal. Much like Trump rolling back environmental legislatio
It's very cold. (Score:3, Insightful)
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The solution, at worst, is probably in the precise definition of what a "light truck" is. Back in the day, all you had to do was buy a 1-ton pickup to be emissions-exempt. But never is also a long time -- I would rather be traveling that area in a nuclear-powered truck.
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Actually, here (BC), you just had to change the GVW on a half tons registration as long as you weren't using it for business. Insurance went up but at least you could get insurance.
As for a nuclear powered truck, it is scary enough on those ice roads without any extra weight.
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Maybe they could make cars powered by maple syrup? They'd never run out!
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What? You think I'm gonna steal a bottle of maple syrup? Of course I bring my wallet. Kids.
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There is a maple syrup crime syndicate in Quebec. It's true.
https://medium.com/@poetsarah/the-maple-syrup-mafia-9190837f783
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Not to mention people rely on having extra gas in case they slide off the road or have other issues to keep their heater running for a day or more until they can get help. An electric car in the middle of no where in sub zero weather could be a death trap.
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Not to mention people rely on having extra gas in case they slide off the road or have other issues to keep their heater running for a day or more until they can get help. An electric car in the middle of no where in sub zero weather could be a death trap.
Nobody stops you from bringing along a kerosene powered heater in an EV. And you typically can't siphon fuel from modern gas cars anyway.
As for EVs, I once got trapped for a day near a mountain pass in an EV. I turned off air conditioning, cranked up seat heaters and was fine, periodically I was turning on the AC to replace the stale air inside.
The next day I was surrounded by gas cars that quickly ran out of fuel, while I still had more than enough to make it down the mountain.
The White-hot North (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a lot of empty, cold wilderness in Canada.
It's not very cold right now - we hit 37C with tomorrow predicted to be 38C and parts of BC hit 49C. For comparison the highest temperature ever recorded in Las Vegas is 47.2C. Normally when the temperature hits the forties there is a minus sign involved. At this rate, we are going to be known as the white-hot north.
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> but it does seem like test bed locations for electric and self driving vehicles are cities like San Diego and not Hay River.
Good thing hardly anybody lives in Hay River then. And most of the people who live in places like that tend to buy trucks that wouldn't be classed as "light". Plus assuming this really does actually for realsies go into effect in 2035, there's still tons of cars on the used market that will have a decade or two of life in them. Options abound.
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> There is a lot of empty, cold wilderness in Canada.
Yep. And not too many people go there. Also if BC is any indication with it's 43C (110F) IN JUNE week we are having, that cold wilderness might not be so cold by 2035.
> There is an ice road the length of Norway. This will never be traversed without gasoline, never mind the equipment to make said ice road.
That road was never to be traversed by passenger cars and light trucks anyway. Care to point out any other irrelevant weird niche cases for us
Re:It's very cold. (Score:4, Informative)
That's where you're making a mistake. A lot of "Cold empty wilderness" has no reason to be traveled.
If you want to go between Vancouver and Toronto, there is a train. But if you want to go to Yellowknife, Whitehorse, Iqaluit from anywhere else in Canada, there are no roads, you are going by plane.
Iqaluit itself, is not reachable by car. It's on an Island. And sometimes dog sled when the water to the mainland freezes over.
Yellowknife, Whitehorse, not reachable by rail.
If trains can traverse long parts of the continent, there is no reason why EV's can't. It may require rethinking what kind of vehicles are sold above 55 degrees north, but it's certainly something that can be done. Like what I potentially see is that "northern/alaska" market vehicles which operate in full-EV mode when used in the city, but have diesel generator trailers for extended range.
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Of course there are roads to Yellowknife and Whitehorse. 2,229 km to Yellowknife from here, 2,332 to Whitehorse according to Google maps. It does say no way to Iqaluit
Re: It's very cold. (Score:2)
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Like what I potentially see is that "northern/alaska" market vehicles which operate in full-EV mode when used in the city, but have diesel generator trailers for extended range.
Look, no. This has been imagined over and over again and it's not a good plan. There are three big reasons. One, people aren't good at towing. Two, small trailers are HARDER to back up than long ones, and sometimes you get into situations where you just have to back up... and people will be jackknifing left and right. And due to trailer dynamics, you can get into positions where you literally cannot pull the trailer back to straight, and you cannot back up any more, and you're just fucked and stucked. Three
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It looks like the goal is to electrify those areas. There are currently a lot of communities relying on diesel to produce electricity, so the plan is to transition them away over time.
Interesting you mention Norway. If EVs work well over there and are preferred it suggests that with the proper infrastructure investment they should work anywhere.
Re: It's very cold. (Score:2, Troll)
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EVs are good if you get stuck. Many have a "utility mode" or "camping mode" that lets you maintain heat and things like the radio even while the car in parked and otherwise in low power mode. Bjorn Nyland regularly uses it to camp in cars overnight, and the flat floor can make sleeping in the back easier.
Electrifying those areas would be a good infrastructure project, and improve safety by allowing things like cellular coverage.
Light Trucks (Score:3)
No problem [pinimg.com].
I always joked about there being no top to the 'bro-truck' market. Not a joke anymore. The people down the street had a visitor stop by. The guy has a Volvo VNL 740 sleeper cab truck set up as a pickup truck. His daily driver.
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His obsession with Euro Truck Simulator has clearly taken over his life.
Will never happen (Score:4, Interesting)
Canadian here.
While the vast majority of us can eventually make do with electric cars, we have roads in some places over a thousand kilometres long, with nothing on them. Think like the Alaska Highway, but worse. I've driven on of them, up the east coast of Hudson Bay. It's absolutely empty, and there's 8 hours between gas stations. Many ICE cars don't even have the range do drive there as it is.
We have ice roads into northern communities that will soon (due to global warming) become an even larger network of vast, desolate roads. The cost of installing electric charging stations on these roads would be insurmountable. You're talking about tens, if not hundreds of thousands of kilometres of new high-tension power lines. We just wouldn't be able to put charging stations far enough out to make this feasible. So, sure, the vast majority of cars could be electric by 2035, not all of them can be. Therefore a ban is not a realistic solution.
I don't see it happening in 25 years to travel for a thousand km, in the dead of winter, possibly towing a load. Is it possible? Sure. But I highly doubt it.
Plus, we have an election coming up, likely in the fall, and parliament is out for the summer very soon. This is Trudeau's (and his party's) way of saying "Look at all the good I've done! I'm hip and green!", without actually accomplishing anything, because as we all know, in government terms, "in 25 years" means "I don't have a plan, I won't create a plan, and I'm leaving this for someone else to solve.
Re: Will never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
It's 15 years until the proposed ban but I agree. To be fair these long roads wouldn't be a problem for a while due to used vehicles still on the market. And the government could define a truck with sufficient equipment for that road you describe as not being "light duty". I would assume that to use that highway I would need a pretty well equipped truck not a base model f-150 with all seasons on it.
Indeed, you'd see bigger trucks, mostly... (Score:2)
Okay, my knowledge of the ice road: I watched "Ice Road Truckers". So, let's analyze a bit.
First up, the article says cars and light duty trucks. The Semis hauling cargo on that road are very much NOT light duty, so unaffected by this. Moving my way down, the only vehicles I can see being affected would actually be the O&M vehicles - Operations and Maintenance. Basically, going back to the show, I'm thinking of the police cars(that give the semis tickets for things like speeding), the car they use
Re: Indeed, you'd see bigger trucks, mostly... (Score:2)
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There are probably zero or close to zero vehicles on those roads that qualify as a car or light truck.
Not totally familiar with Canadian regulations, but a lot of pickups in the US are larger than the legal definition of "light truck".
I don't see it happening in 25 years to travel for a thousand km, in the dead of winter, possibly towing a load.
Semis definitely do not qualify as a "light truck".
That is deliberate (Score:4, Interesting)
Not totally familiar with Canadian regulations, but a lot of pickups in the US are larger than the legal definition of "light truck".
It's the law of unintended consequences. By imposing stricter emission and mileage standards on "light trucks", the government actually made the problem worse because it was cheaper to make the trucks BIGGER so they no longer fell into that category rather than make them more efficient. Ergo, it's actually very difficult to buy a small truck in the USA anymore.
Dad would love a new Ford Ranger type truck, but all the proposals we've seen are as big as a F-150.
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Ergo, it's actually very difficult to buy a small truck in the USA anymore.
All vehicles have either puffed up with safety features, crumple zones, door crash bars, reinforced pillars and the like, or they have expensed up with more expensive but less space-consuming features which accomplish the same thing, like an i3 or a Smart Car. Honda and Ford are both now making unibody pickups on FWD platforms, with available AWD. These vehicles provide the truck style on a more efficient platform for the people who don't actually need a pickup truck but choose to drive one anyway. I believ
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You don't need a semi to tow a load a thousand km in the dead of winter though. I've done it in an Outback (light SUV/large hatchback). It happens all the time in remote areas - people traveling for work, permanently relocating, winter vacations, etc. Or even just hauling firewood back to whatever remote place you happen live with a utility trailer. Or seeing the family for Christmas.
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There's another factor as well interfering with zero emissions - you get way, way less sunlight up that far north. Especially in the winter months. That means solar isn't much help to reach a zero-emissions goal. Also, in an ICE vehicle, technically speaking, your efficiency increases in winter because all that "waste" heat is used to heat the interior of the vehicle. For an electric it's the exact opposite - the range efficiency goes down because non-trivial amounts of energy are used to heat the interi
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In practice, no. ICE engines generally have thermostat so they heat up to a constant temperature regardless of environment. Remember the Carnot cycle is an limit on efficiency, not something you necessarily approximate.
Banning things is nonsese (Score:3)
Sounds good but people have different requirements. Like the need for an old fashion light globe to keep something warm.
If you want to reduce fuel use then put a tax on it. People will then make their own judgements.
There is no "just tax it" (Score:2)
If you want to reduce fuel use then put a tax on it. People will then make their own judgements.
What if they decide it is just easier to go to the next election and vote in a politician that will remove the tax?
There is no "just tax it" when the people have a vote. If you reached the point in which people agree a "carbon tax" is a good idea to reduce the carbon footprint of their neighbors then the neighbors have already decided to lower their carbon footprint on their own. To get people to agree on the tax means you have an agreement on the need to have an alternative. The tax will come only after
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My wife and I drove the Al-Can roughly 35 years ago. Even back then, there were small communities - with power, and gas stations - every 40-50 miles. So that particular road might not be as big a problem as you might think.
I can’t speak to the other side of your country, though. I do remember flying (not driving) into Goose Bay once - seemed like a tiny outpost surrounded by a whole lot of nothing.
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There are sections of the Alaska highway that have gas stations in the summer and not in the winter. It's not like it would be hard to plop some charging stations down though.
There are other roads that genuinely don't have gas stations, but you're not driving along those in your Civic either. Those thousand or so vehicles will probably stay diesel for the foreseeable future.
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Those remote small communities get their electricity from gasoline or diesel-powered generators (so does Hawaii [wikipedia.org] for that matter). They're too far north for solar to be effective (you'd freeze to death in winter when there's little sunlight). And they're too small for a large wind turbine
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While the vast majority of us can eventually make do with electric cars, we have roads in some places over a thousand kilometres long, with nothing on them.
The currently available EV cars have a 700km range. We can assume that by 2035 we'll have cars with twice that range, which would allow them to traverse pretty much any road in Canada. And finally, for those rare cases where gas cars are absolutely required, people will likely get exemptions.
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The currently available EV cars have a 700km range. We can assume that by 2035 we'll have cars with twice that range, which would allow them to traverse pretty much any road in Canada. And finally, for those rare cases where gas cars are absolutely required, people will likely get exemptions.
Sure, but you still need a way to charge your car when you get there, or if you live there, and that's the hard part, I think. Liquid fuels are far easier and cheaper to transport than electricity, because we already have the infrastructure to do so.
Although, a method of large scale energy storage besides batteries would be a game changer. We do have a lot of hydroelectric potential still, and even tidal.
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I lived behind the Arctic circle and from my personal experience, all the vehicles that we were using outside of cities are heavily modified (insulation, webasto heaters, etc.). It's likely that gas/diesels are still going to be used with special exemptions for some time.
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Canadian here.
While the vast majority of us can eventually make do with electric cars, we have roads in some places over a thousand kilometres long, with nothing on them. Think like the Alaska Highway, but worse. I've driven on of them, up the east coast of Hudson Bay. It's absolutely empty, and there's 8 hours between gas stations. Many ICE cars don't even have the range do drive there as it is.
Could you now consider installing gas stations?
Underground fuel tanks are isolated, don't require massive power infrastructure, and we've probably come far enough with solar power to run a gas station, including the pumps. Yes, even in winter with short days, supplemented by generators or battery reserve when needed. (Not like you don't have room to put a rather large solar panel field.) Tankers driving 2-4 hours to put fuel in the ground would not be unheard of, and again you've got plenty of room to in
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Sure, you can double the range. Of that, I have no doubt. In fifteen years it could triple. But you still need a way to recharge when you get there, and the hard fact remains that without high voltage power lines, that kind of infrastructure is still very much infeasible. I don't see it becoming feasible in fifteen years.
We have roads to a lot of places that are very, very far away from a grid connection.
I suppose you could run charging stations off diesel generators, but that would be exorbitantly expensiv
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If they're far away from a grid connection, then there's no gas station. So you bring additional gas. Or bring additional batteries. Or charge via solar (which granted may not be super effective depending on time of year). Or charge off generator. Or even just legislate exemptions .. but really I doubt we'll need em other than heavy duty stuff.
A lot of people here are proving the aphorism "perfect is the enemy of good"
Canada is rural as fuck (Score:4, Insightful)
How exactly are they planning to make EVs work in places that barely have any electricity to begin with?
I have a theory: let's remember that in the long long ago of a few months back, Trudeau was petitioning Biden hard not to kill the Keystone XL pipeline. Therefore this is not going to happen in any meaningful way. Because physics trumps wishful thinking every day of the week and twice on whatever day your religion designates as the sabbath.
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And exactly where are those places without electricity? Just curious.
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We were a little too good at convincing the Americans we live in igloos and ride moose everywhere.
Re:Canada is rural as fuck (Score:5, Interesting)
Living and farming in rural Canada I am of a dual mind on this issue. On the one hand a work-trim level half ton or 3/4 ton that was all electric would be a perfect fit for my farm for driving around the fields and doing irrigation. I don't drive more than maybe 15 miles in a day tops, and it's all at fairly low speed, sometimes in 4WD and I carry tools and sometimes pivot tires in a full-size box. I burn crazy amounts of gasoline doing that. It's ridiculous. Electric would be wonderful. But as of yet no one offers anything that would be suitable at a decent price. Seems like the auto makers seem focused more on the high-end trim levels and the luxury market. It's really discouraging and I don't see that changing anytime soon, sadly.
But I agree politicians and bureaucrats have only the faintest notion of just how big Canada really is and where people are spread out, once you leave the cities. I do keep hoping we'll make some breakthroughs in technology, though, that can make it possible. Nothing very practical on the horizon just yet though.
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Then good news!
https://www.ford.ca/trucks/f15... [www.ford.ca]
About 15k CAD more than a super crew XLT 4wd, but it's getting there.
In the US, they're selling a commercially oriented stripper that starts 13k USD cheaper than the base consumer one... not listed on the .ca site of course.
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Sure but can I get it without the big touch screen and all the fancy bells and whistles? Most of these "features" are useless on a farm work truck, and even a liability. I don't need cloud connections or anything like that. I'm not trying to optimize my range. Completely different use case than city driving. That's why I remain skeptical that anyone will make a truck that will work on a farm. Which is really unfortunate but understandable. Ford doesn't stand to make much money from farmers compared to
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Ford doesn't stand to make much money from farmers compared to their city customers.
I don't think that's it.
I think it's that they don't think that big useless (to farmers) touchscreen will turn enough of them completely off as to make it worth their time.
I.e., they think you'll buy it anyway.
Whether they're right or not, who knows. I'm not a farmer, nor a Ford exec.
But I can tell you that the little econo hybrid I picked up for work commute (funnily enough, just before the pandemic, at which point it became pretty useless for that intended purpose at least) has lots of annoying things
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I think you're very much overestimating how much those "bells and whistles" add to the overall cost of a vehicle at those economies of scale. It's close to cheaper to not offer the option. They're more expensive because they're electric and still don't move at volumes that would bring down cost. Yet. That's something legislation can help work towards.
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But as of yet no one offers anything that would be suitable at a decent price.
As of yet no, but the F-150 lightning is coming fast and starts at $41,669. All models are 4WD and the base XL model will have 200 miles of range. The model with the extended battery has about 280 miles and also has a fast charger which works both ways and lets the truck act as a whole-house UPS. Even without incentives, the fuel savings make the TCO extremely attractive.
So? (Score:2)
By 2035, that sounds reasonable. Set the deadline in the future that far and it doesn't matter.
Phase it in (Score:5, Interesting)
If they (or anyone else with a similar future ban) were serious, then they would start now with a tax on new sales of vehicles with internal combustion engines. Do something like start with a tax of $50 per vehicle in January, and add $50 every month. Put the money into charging infrastructure and renewables.
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That's because if they believed that it was the BEV that was the future then they'd need to tax those vehicles to pay for the roads, bridges, charging stations, and so on.
Literally the only thing that makes sense is to increase taxes on heavy trucks, which do basically all of the road damage not done by weather.
These taxes wind up absorbed by the people who buy the stuff shipped on the trucks, which is how the market SHOULD work, so the plan is perfect.
Sure bud. (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk is cheap. They didn't even pass a law. Somebody else will probably be Prime Minister in 2035, perhaps from a different party. Even a law can easily be overturned, but at least it would get something concrete in writing.
You want to do something practical? Put it in a law and start the transition immediately. Set a percentage for 2022, even if it's some low percentage that the major manufacturers have already passed. 15% of cars must be BEV/PHEV/FCEV in 2022. 20% of cars in 2023. 25% in 2024. And so on. That's not even much of a stretch, in January 2021, BEV/PHEV/FCEV made up 23% of Toyota Canada's sales. They're already a few years ahead of that curve.
The point is that there needs to be clear and concrete and immediate rules on the books. It's a lot harder for a government in 2035 to erase progress if the car companies had to hit 30% in 2025 and 55% in 2030.
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Interim targets that are not yet in writing (law) and even then won't start until four years from now? The current government is notorious for being big talkers that never quite seem to deliver. They make promises and then say "Oh, it was harder than we thought, so we won't do what we promised."
This is the same government that in 2018 promised to completely phase out the use of single-use plastics by the end of 2021, but halfway through 2021 hasn't even introduced a law to start the process. They just keep
I think this will change (Score:2)
one problem is we don't have the electrical infrastructure or the resources to build the specialized batteries and motors needed for all these electric cars. I'll bet many of these 'mandatory switchover' dates will be pushed back.
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I'll bet many of these 'mandatory switchover' dates will be pushed back.
Maybe they will. That doesn't mean they won't accomplish steps toward the goal of them, though.
Why extreme solutions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead the people who need gas cars will either drive old, less efficient vehicles, or heavy trucks which are exempt - both of which will increase emissions.
Um (Score:4)
These bans are always 10-15 years off.
Just short enough to sound real, to those who want them to happen. Quite long enough to be impossible to hold anybody to account for the promise.
The fact is that a democracy can't require its future self to do stuff. It's cheap political gain to pretend that you can, though.
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The UK ban starts in 2030, which is nine years and counting. And while a future government could reverse the decision, or (much more likely) push it out a few more years, the direction of travel is clear.
2013: 0.2%
2014: 0.6%
2015: 1.1%
2016: 1.4%
2017: 1.9%
2018: 2.5%
2019: 3.1%
2020: 10.7%
YTD2021: 13.4%
A much better idea (Score:3)
is to put a tax on ICE engine vehicles, then let the market sort it out. Banning just causes all kinds of weird distortions.
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An even better idea is to tax gasoline and diesel, and use the monies to build out the electric charging infrastructure.
By making it cheaper for people to use electric cars, that's what they'll do. No need to beat them over the head with bans.
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Think of it this way - those rich people will be paying for the electric infrastructure so the poor can inexpensively drive electric cars.
This will happen: (Score:2)
Everyone that wants to drive with gas will be driving heavy trucks in the year 2035 and wasting more gas because they can't buy a light truck
Re: This will happen: (Score:2)
Energy requirements don't change (Score:2)
You can get that energy from fuels, or you can get it from electricity.
Looking only at gasoline, 1 litre of gasoline yields 8.8 kWh (source: https://www.calculateme.com/en... [calculateme.com])
According to Petro Canada there are 40billion litres of gasoline consumed in Canada each year. (source: https://www.pumptalk.ca/2007/0... [pumptalk.ca])
This works out to 3.5 x 10^11 kWh (350 trillion)
Or to use the units required for the next comparison, 350,000 giga watt-hours In 2019 in a
Re: (Score:3)
The amount of energy needed to run a vehicle is fixed.
Completely false. The amount of energy needed to MOVE a vehicle is fixed, but the amount needed to RUN it varies based on its efficiency, and it takes MUCH less energy to RUN an EV than it does to RUN an ICEV.
Start buying now (Score:2)
Re:Exhaling to be banned by 2050, Eh ? (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. [wikipedia.org] And I was reading mass media at the time too, even.
But continue to cherry pick the scientific minority that tells you what you want to hear when you want to hear it. The rest of us will ignore them and continue to follow the climate change consensus [www.ipcc.ch] that's been building since 1950s, with the data to back it up.
Re: Exhaling to be banned by 2050, Eh ? (Score:4, Insightful)
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https://www.insidescience.org/... [insidescience.org]
there really were articles at the time, even that wikipedia link of the "Nope" guy has articles by "experts", why don't you read it. Fact is, proven by that link of the "Nope" guy, that major news outlets ran stories from multiple "experts" about cooling.
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Last week a bunch of them were running stories about aliens. So what?
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Facts? He cited Wikipedia. It's devoid of facts.
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Smog was a real problem.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Yet your wikipedia link does list the articles and "experts".
You have some real reality denial going on there pal.
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
https://www.insidescience.org/... [insidescience.org]
Re: (Score:2)
You can find individual "experts" to propound anything. And you can find news articles that discuss what the experts are propounding because, get this, it's news.
There was no consensus concerning global cooling, and precious little data to support that.
The IPCC reports have both in spades.
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The problem is that certain theories are more true than others.
GHG emissions have done nothing but skyrocket since the oil shock, and it's not sustainable. Even if we all switched to EV's overnight, globally, it's not going to slow down. We are running a GHG social deficit that will not even be met if we replanted all the trees and bulldozed all the farms and returned them to forest. Something else has to happen now that involves directly pumping GHG's out of the atmosphere into cold storage. The irony is t
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There was an argument that if we pumped enough smog into the atmosphere, we would enter a cooling phase back in the '70's. It was called global dimming and would have been worse if only due to the acidification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Even now it counteracts the effects of global warming by 4-20%.
Thing is that due to all the negative affects, we stopped it (actually slowed it down) by doing things like cleaning up the coal emissions.
Re: Exhaling to be banned by 2050, Eh ? (Score:3)
Exactly. You can even see the historical record of the southeastern US temperatures bucked the overall US temperature rise. This is in part because of the amount of aerosols produced by coal-fired power plants (there is debate about whether it was the dominant contributor or was one of several). The problem is that the same particulate matter was driving poor air quality (PM2.5), leading to regulations that knocked down sulfurous coal emissions.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/v... [ametsoc.org]
So it is possible that there
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I remember Popular Science having an article on global cooling in either the late 70s or early 80s. It was definitely reported in the mass media for a short period of time before consensus had settled on warming being the outcome.
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Let's go ask the guys on Venus if runaway greenhouse effect is a myth. Oh.. wait....
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Do you honestly think you are not going to die?
Re:So... Coal power for Canada, then... (Score:5, Informative)