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Good. There's nothing else stopping EVs from mass adoption besides these artificial barriers. You cannot undermine progress forever. I bet the auto factory work

by 1970-01-01 1y ago

Good. There's nothing else stopping EVs from mass adoption besides these artificial barriers. You cannot undermine progress forever. I bet the auto factory workers are told they are supposed to feel upset about this. They should feel upset, because their government hasn't addressed the global shift to EVs sooner.

helloooooooo 1y ago
This is the wrong take. Economic dependence on China is a massive national security threat. Exporting your manufacturing base to a nation that opposes the fundamental values of a nation is completely suicidal, and if war ever occurs, you’re toast. China is increasingly belligerent with their excess industrial capacity, engaging in dumping and overproducing to cut out competing non-Chinese manufacturers. They engage heavily in IP theft. Allowing critical manufacturing supply chains to move to China is stupid.
- watwut 1y ago
  The problem is that as of now, the dependence on USA is more destabilizing. It is a country that has fundamental values difference against Canada, threatened Canada just recently and if war occurs, it is huge issue for Canada.
- Rover222 1y ago
  Palmer Lucky touched on this last week - how China would love to slowly winnow away American automobile manufacturing capacity, because that capacity would be converted to wartime production in the event of a large scale war.
  - Sabinus 1y ago
    The Chinese have already achieved this in shipbuilding. Chinese shipyards build most container ships while the US shipyards decay.
    - Rover222 1y ago
      yeah, pretty dire on that front
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- andy99 1y ago
  Canada already isn’t economically independent. Diversification is fine, especially if it saves costs that can then be deliberately redirected towards improving sovereign capabilities. Right now we have the worst of both worlds, we pay top much for stuff or can’t get it, and remain completely dependent on the US and China. We could and should further diversify by removing whatever barriers are keeping European cars out.
  - amrocha 1y ago
    Europe has barriers keeping Chinese cars out because otherwise they couldn’t compete. Why should Canada rely on an inferior manufacturer?
    - ipaddr 1y ago
      Because their are no Canadian car companies.
      - amrocha 1y ago
        How is that related to allowing European car manufacturers in but not Chinese ones?
        ipaddr 1y ago
        Europeans want to protect their local car companies but Canadians don't have any. The best they can hope for is a branch from a foreign country setting up a local factory to make cars for the local population.
        amrocha 1y ago
        Ok, so why should we allow the inferior European product that needs protection to compete with the superior Chinese product?
- Fricken 1y ago
  China has been a stable and reliable trading partner with Canada for a long time. Canada is far too small a country to produce everything it needs within it's own borders. If anyone ever declares war on Canada then we're toast, so we're best not going out of our way to make enemies with the world's dominant superpowers –one of which is actively threatening our sovereignty.
  - helloooooooo 1y ago
    China is always willing to dump, tariff and subversively coerce its way into hollowing industries. This is not stable nor reliable. It is aggressive and a national security threat. They infiltrate civil society through their networks of “police stations” and the Confucius Institute with the aim of placing sycophants in positions of power. They aren’t our friends, and Canadian civil society needs to recognize that.
    - Fricken 1y ago
      They especially aren't our friends if we go out of our way to make enemies with them. Why would we do that? It doesn't make any sense. It's a small world, China isn't going anywhere, we're stuck living on the same planet as them. They aren't going to have less of an influence on our affairs in the future going forward. Canada has a long standing problem. The only thing we've ever been good at is natural resource extraction. Ironically we have several world class universities producing very talented people and IP, and the vast majority of it goes to the states to make money. Then here in Canada we carry on digging stuff out of the ground.
    - watwut 1y ago
      > China is always willing to dump, tariff and subversively coerce its way into hollowing industries. So, you are saying they arw like USA right now, except more predictable?
    - maxglute 1y ago
      It's been 20 years, what cheap Chinese goods have raised in prices? The china dump accusation is retarded at this point, the reality is PRC is manufacturing superpower who permanently reduces costs for the simple reason they need affordable prices for domestic market that incidentally makes them stupid competitive. Now if your argument is we should erect protectionist walls to protect industrial base, that makes sense. But Canadian auto base is tied to US and US doesn't want to share anymore which means dead Canadian auto. The option left is to take cheap Chinese EVs, do some sort of Canadian JV where we capture some value vs potentially losing car manufacturing completely. PRC probably fine with that, their "dumping" is selling cars abroad for 2x domestic MSRP, they can feasibly live with splitting that 2x while US wants it all.
- amrocha 1y ago
  First, dependence on the US hasn’t exactly worked out very well for us the past year. As a smaller nation, Canada has to be dependent on its trade with more powerful nations, and that comes with risks regardless of what nation we’re dependent on. Second, I don’t buy your fear mongering about China. There’s not much fundamentally different about China and western nations in 2025. They’re a capitalist society prioritizing growth at all costs, same as every other western nation. China is not interested in war, and has stated that consistently over the years. Third, as far as “critical manufacturing supply chains” go, extremely inefficient luxury personal vehicles don’t fit that definition.
- a4isms 1y ago
  > Exporting your manufacturing base to a nation that opposes the fundamental values of a nation is completely suicidal How do you feel about integrating your manufacturing base with a nation that opposes the fundamental values of our nation, and constantly fantasizes about annexing our nation? Unless you're arguing for Canada to make its own EV manufacturing industry independently from both China and America?
- tokioyoyo 1y ago
  What's the alternative to Canada? To be depended on the states who, very openly, threaten them on every possible occasion? Unfortunately, it's not 2000s/2010s anymore, and rules of the game have changed. Most countries realize that there is a future that's not purely Pax-Americana (including USA as well). Sovereign nations will choose what's best for them and their future, especially in the cases of a neighbouring bully.
- snarf21 1y ago
  Serious question: hasn't the western world largely exporting their manufacturing base to China for everything, just not EVs/batteries? There is a major conflict here between corporate profits vs national security. Consumers generally don't care about vague concepts like national security if it makes things cheaper.
  - helloooooooo 1y ago
    It’s a tragedy of the horizon (if I may use the term coined by the Prime Minister). Basically, corporations and democratic countries are more focussed on the short term, such that long term concerns like national security, climate change etc… are not appropriately integrated into risk models.
- _ZeD_ 1y ago
  > This is the wrong take. Economic dependence on China is a massive national security threat. and instead dependence on the U.S.?
- tharmas 1y ago
  The neoliberals didn't care about national security when they shifted the manufacturing and jobs to China for profit. They were outplayed by the Chinese. My anger lies with the neoliberal elites not the Chinese. The elites can go die on the battlefield. Its their mess.
hackernewscunts 1y ago
[flagged]
anovikov 1y ago
Mass adoption of EVs is inevitable anyway. It's just a matter of being say 5 years behind China. Even if those 5 years now look like 10% vs 50% market share, in 10 years they will mean nothing.
incomingpain 1y ago
>Good. There's nothing else stopping EVs from mass adoption besides these artificial barriers. EVs arent able to function in -40c That happens in Canada every year. Anything under 0c has risk of freezing the lithium battery's electrolyte and will have very very significant capacity loss; not to mention damaging cells. That's a huge problem for Canada. I look forward to solid state batteries having far better low temp performance. Our northern most cities like Edmonton get to -40c and -50c regularly: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-extreme-cold-winter-1.7082216 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-extreme-cold... Fair, yes, my city only ever really gets down to -20c. Yes I own an EV that's outside 365. To expect much EV adoption in Canada is foolish though. >hey should feel upset, because their government hasn't addressed the global shift to EVs sooner. Our government has heavily invested in EVs for like 15 years. This is a bizarre take.
- icegreentea2 1y ago
  Maybe not -40C, but honestly that's not required to capture a huge chunk of the Canadian market (BC around Vancouver, and SWO Ontario). China has significant climatic variation, and Harbin (for example) at around 45 degree latitude is right in line with Montreal. https://english.news.cn/20230712/a56c80cac8e749f0bcf025794638e93f/c.html https://english.news.cn/20230712/a56c80cac8e749f0bcf02579463...
- a4isms 1y ago
  Are you seriously suggesting that Chinese automobile companies exporting to Europe and possibly North America are oblivious to the existence of winter? Their own country has cities like Harbin where temperatures can reach -35.
  - cmrdporcupine 1y ago
    This is just outright FUD from this person. Or just ignorance combined with a need to be heard, I don't know. I lived in Edmonton and surrounding rural Alberta for the first 25 years of my life, the most northern and cold major city in the country and it does not get to -40 unless you're counting wind chill, and cars don't feel wind chill, people do. An EV has no real problems operating in typical Canadian weather, less problems than a gas car in fact. Yes, they lose efficiency but so do gas and diesel vehicles. And sodium ion batteries are now entering mass production, which have no efficiency loss in extremely cold weather, and in fact will outperform ICE in this regard (though their power density is lower than lithium ion)
petermcneeley 1y ago
This is unkind and also factually wrong. Canada literally has an EV mandate: https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-technologies/zero-emission-vehicles/canada-s-zero-emission-vehicle-sales-targets https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-techn... Canada has also worked on developing an EV industry: https://electricautonomy.ca/ev-supply-chain/manufacturing/2025-10-22/gm-brightdrop-electric-van-production-cami-plant/ https://electricautonomy.ca/ev-supply-chain/manufacturing/20...
- wmoxam 1y ago
  Developing an EV industry depended on US cooperation. That cooperation is gone since Trump was elected.
  - petermcneeley 1y ago
    Canada is not really independent of the USA. The better way to view this is that Canada is like California. This is not a battle between countries but an internal civil conflict within the hegemony. And your reply does not touch on the 'unkind' portion of my comment. Why should those workers suffer more than they already have?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - cmrdporcupine 1y ago
      No capitalist market country is independent of any other country in the 21st century and for most of the 20th. This isn't saying much, it's just a matter of degrees. Yes, Canada is economically integrated with the US to a massive degree and we're each other's biggest trading partners. But the analogy with California is a totally false one. They are a US state subject to its federal laws and political system. We are not. We maintain political independence, and need to maintain that independence.
      - petermcneeley 1y ago

helloooooooo 1y ago

This is the wrong take. Economic dependence on China is a massive national security threat. Exporting your manufacturing base to a nation that opposes the fundamental values of a nation is completely suicidal, and if war ever occurs, you’re toast. China is increasingly belligerent with their excess industrial capacity, engaging in dumping and overproducing to cut out competing non-Chinese manufacturers. They engage heavily in IP theft. Allowing critical manufacturing supply chains to move to China is stupid.

watwut 1y ago
The problem is that as of now, the dependence on USA is more destabilizing. It is a country that has fundamental values difference against Canada, threatened Canada just recently and if war occurs, it is huge issue for Canada.
Rover222 1y ago
Palmer Lucky touched on this last week - how China would love to slowly winnow away American automobile manufacturing capacity, because that capacity would be converted to wartime production in the event of a large scale war.
- Sabinus 1y ago
  The Chinese have already achieved this in shipbuilding. Chinese shipyards build most container ships while the US shipyards decay.
  - Rover222 1y ago
    yeah, pretty dire on that front
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
andy99 1y ago
Canada already isn’t economically independent. Diversification is fine, especially if it saves costs that can then be deliberately redirected towards improving sovereign capabilities. Right now we have the worst of both worlds, we pay top much for stuff or can’t get it, and remain completely dependent on the US and China. We could and should further diversify by removing whatever barriers are keeping European cars out.
- amrocha 1y ago
  Europe has barriers keeping Chinese cars out because otherwise they couldn’t compete. Why should Canada rely on an inferior manufacturer?
  - ipaddr 1y ago
    Because their are no Canadian car companies.
    - amrocha 1y ago
      How is that related to allowing European car manufacturers in but not Chinese ones?
      - ipaddr 1y ago
        Europeans want to protect their local car companies but Canadians don't have any. The best they can hope for is a branch from a foreign country setting up a local factory to make cars for the local population.
        amrocha 1y ago
        Ok, so why should we allow the inferior European product that needs protection to compete with the superior Chinese product?
Fricken 1y ago
China has been a stable and reliable trading partner with Canada for a long time. Canada is far too small a country to produce everything it needs within it's own borders. If anyone ever declares war on Canada then we're toast, so we're best not going out of our way to make enemies with the world's dominant superpowers –one of which is actively threatening our sovereignty.
- helloooooooo 1y ago
  China is always willing to dump, tariff and subversively coerce its way into hollowing industries. This is not stable nor reliable. It is aggressive and a national security threat. They infiltrate civil society through their networks of “police stations” and the Confucius Institute with the aim of placing sycophants in positions of power. They aren’t our friends, and Canadian civil society needs to recognize that.
  - Fricken 1y ago
    They especially aren't our friends if we go out of our way to make enemies with them. Why would we do that? It doesn't make any sense. It's a small world, China isn't going anywhere, we're stuck living on the same planet as them. They aren't going to have less of an influence on our affairs in the future going forward. Canada has a long standing problem. The only thing we've ever been good at is natural resource extraction. Ironically we have several world class universities producing very talented people and IP, and the vast majority of it goes to the states to make money. Then here in Canada we carry on digging stuff out of the ground.
  - watwut 1y ago
    > China is always willing to dump, tariff and subversively coerce its way into hollowing industries. So, you are saying they arw like USA right now, except more predictable?
  - maxglute 1y ago
    It's been 20 years, what cheap Chinese goods have raised in prices? The china dump accusation is retarded at this point, the reality is PRC is manufacturing superpower who permanently reduces costs for the simple reason they need affordable prices for domestic market that incidentally makes them stupid competitive. Now if your argument is we should erect protectionist walls to protect industrial base, that makes sense. But Canadian auto base is tied to US and US doesn't want to share anymore which means dead Canadian auto. The option left is to take cheap Chinese EVs, do some sort of Canadian JV where we capture some value vs potentially losing car manufacturing completely. PRC probably fine with that, their "dumping" is selling cars abroad for 2x domestic MSRP, they can feasibly live with splitting that 2x while US wants it all.
amrocha 1y ago
First, dependence on the US hasn’t exactly worked out very well for us the past year. As a smaller nation, Canada has to be dependent on its trade with more powerful nations, and that comes with risks regardless of what nation we’re dependent on. Second, I don’t buy your fear mongering about China. There’s not much fundamentally different about China and western nations in 2025. They’re a capitalist society prioritizing growth at all costs, same as every other western nation. China is not interested in war, and has stated that consistently over the years. Third, as far as “critical manufacturing supply chains” go, extremely inefficient luxury personal vehicles don’t fit that definition.
a4isms 1y ago
> Exporting your manufacturing base to a nation that opposes the fundamental values of a nation is completely suicidal How do you feel about integrating your manufacturing base with a nation that opposes the fundamental values of our nation, and constantly fantasizes about annexing our nation? Unless you're arguing for Canada to make its own EV manufacturing industry independently from both China and America?
tokioyoyo 1y ago
What's the alternative to Canada? To be depended on the states who, very openly, threaten them on every possible occasion? Unfortunately, it's not 2000s/2010s anymore, and rules of the game have changed. Most countries realize that there is a future that's not purely Pax-Americana (including USA as well). Sovereign nations will choose what's best for them and their future, especially in the cases of a neighbouring bully.
snarf21 1y ago
Serious question: hasn't the western world largely exporting their manufacturing base to China for everything, just not EVs/batteries? There is a major conflict here between corporate profits vs national security. Consumers generally don't care about vague concepts like national security if it makes things cheaper.
- helloooooooo 1y ago
  It’s a tragedy of the horizon (if I may use the term coined by the Prime Minister). Basically, corporations and democratic countries are more focussed on the short term, such that long term concerns like national security, climate change etc… are not appropriately integrated into risk models.
_ZeD_ 1y ago
> This is the wrong take. Economic dependence on China is a massive national security threat. and instead dependence on the U.S.?
tharmas 1y ago
The neoliberals didn't care about national security when they shifted the manufacturing and jobs to China for profit. They were outplayed by the Chinese. My anger lies with the neoliberal elites not the Chinese. The elites can go die on the battlefield. Its their mess.

hackernewscunts 1y ago

[flagged]

anovikov 1y ago

Mass adoption of EVs is inevitable anyway. It's just a matter of being say 5 years behind China. Even if those 5 years now look like 10% vs 50% market share, in 10 years they will mean nothing.

incomingpain 1y ago

>Good. There's nothing else stopping EVs from mass adoption besides these artificial barriers. EVs arent able to function in -40c That happens in Canada every year. Anything under 0c has risk of freezing the lithium battery's electrolyte and will have very very significant capacity loss; not to mention damaging cells. That's a huge problem for Canada. I look forward to solid state batteries having far better low temp performance. Our northern most cities like Edmonton get to -40c and -50c regularly: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-extreme-cold-winter-1.7082216 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-extreme-cold... Fair, yes, my city only ever really gets down to -20c. Yes I own an EV that's outside 365. To expect much EV adoption in Canada is foolish though. >hey should feel upset, because their government hasn't addressed the global shift to EVs sooner. Our government has heavily invested in EVs for like 15 years. This is a bizarre take.

icegreentea2 1y ago
Maybe not -40C, but honestly that's not required to capture a huge chunk of the Canadian market (BC around Vancouver, and SWO Ontario). China has significant climatic variation, and Harbin (for example) at around 45 degree latitude is right in line with Montreal. https://english.news.cn/20230712/a56c80cac8e749f0bcf025794638e93f/c.html https://english.news.cn/20230712/a56c80cac8e749f0bcf02579463...
a4isms 1y ago
Are you seriously suggesting that Chinese automobile companies exporting to Europe and possibly North America are oblivious to the existence of winter? Their own country has cities like Harbin where temperatures can reach -35.
- cmrdporcupine 1y ago
  This is just outright FUD from this person. Or just ignorance combined with a need to be heard, I don't know. I lived in Edmonton and surrounding rural Alberta for the first 25 years of my life, the most northern and cold major city in the country and it does not get to -40 unless you're counting wind chill, and cars don't feel wind chill, people do. An EV has no real problems operating in typical Canadian weather, less problems than a gas car in fact. Yes, they lose efficiency but so do gas and diesel vehicles. And sodium ion batteries are now entering mass production, which have no efficiency loss in extremely cold weather, and in fact will outperform ICE in this regard (though their power density is lower than lithium ion)

petermcneeley 1y ago

This is unkind and also factually wrong. Canada literally has an EV mandate: https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-technologies/zero-emission-vehicles/canada-s-zero-emission-vehicle-sales-targets https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-techn... Canada has also worked on developing an EV industry: https://electricautonomy.ca/ev-supply-chain/manufacturing/2025-10-22/gm-brightdrop-electric-van-production-cami-plant/ https://electricautonomy.ca/ev-supply-chain/manufacturing/20...

wmoxam 1y ago
Developing an EV industry depended on US cooperation. That cooperation is gone since Trump was elected.
- petermcneeley 1y ago
  Canada is not really independent of the USA. The better way to view this is that Canada is like California. This is not a battle between countries but an internal civil conflict within the hegemony. And your reply does not touch on the 'unkind' portion of my comment. Why should those workers suffer more than they already have?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - cmrdporcupine 1y ago
    No capitalist market country is independent of any other country in the 21st century and for most of the 20th. This isn't saying much, it's just a matter of degrees. Yes, Canada is economically integrated with the US to a massive degree and we're each other's biggest trading partners. But the analogy with California is a totally false one. They are a US state subject to its federal laws and political system. We are not. We maintain political independence, and need to maintain that independence.
    - petermcneeley 1y ago