4 ms·

Canada has a large car industry itself - 100% might be excessive, but every western nation now faces a choice between tariffs on EVs or letting their car indust

Canada has a large car industry itself - 100% might be excessive, but every western nation now faces a choice between tariffs on EVs or letting their car industry be completely eviscerated with hundreds of thousands of job losses

WinstonSmith84 1y ago
the third option is to force foreign companies to manufacture locally (which is often the case). It's kind of the best of both worlds.
- cmrdporcupine 1y ago
  We don't really have that kind of leverage, and our domestic market isn't large enough to make it compelling.
  - tokioyoyo 1y ago
    To be fair, BYD has a bus plant in Newmarket.
    - cmrdporcupine 1y ago
      Oh, that's interesting, I had no idea. Neat.
- giarc 1y ago
  The problem with that is our auto employee salaries would drive the cost of the vehicle up.
- nubinetwork 1y ago
  We don't need to force anyone, toyota is happy making cars in Ontario. Kia/Hyundai/Hondas are everywhere on the road, all we needed to do is splash some incentive cash and we could cut out American automakers pretty quickly.
  - cmrdporcupine 1y ago
    Unfortunately, those Japanese manufacturers are located here because of the American market, because even though there's a healthy domestic market... 80% of what they produce is exported to the US through NAFTA, etc. And they're also here because of the auto-parts supply chain that moves freely back and forth across the border. The markets are heavily intertwined and have been for decades. E.g. Ford Canada is just as old as Ford in the US.
    - conorcleary 1y ago
      They need to, for volume - Canada is outsized
vladvasiliu 1y ago
They can also be incoherent. Don't know about Canada, but here in France we also have a bunch of auto manufacturers and the government seems completely lunatic with these policies. 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.
- amrocha 1y ago
  The Paris government reducing car usage in the city is not the same politicians that are subsidizing the national car industry.
  - vladvasiliu 1y ago
    I'm not convinced there's that big a of a difference as you seem to imply. 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.

WinstonSmith84 1y ago

the third option is to force foreign companies to manufacture locally (which is often the case). It's kind of the best of both worlds.

cmrdporcupine 1y ago
We don't really have that kind of leverage, and our domestic market isn't large enough to make it compelling.
- tokioyoyo 1y ago
  To be fair, BYD has a bus plant in Newmarket.
  - cmrdporcupine 1y ago
    Oh, that's interesting, I had no idea. Neat.
giarc 1y ago
The problem with that is our auto employee salaries would drive the cost of the vehicle up.
nubinetwork 1y ago
We don't need to force anyone, toyota is happy making cars in Ontario. Kia/Hyundai/Hondas are everywhere on the road, all we needed to do is splash some incentive cash and we could cut out American automakers pretty quickly.
- cmrdporcupine 1y ago
  Unfortunately, those Japanese manufacturers are located here because of the American market, because even though there's a healthy domestic market... 80% of what they produce is exported to the US through NAFTA, etc. And they're also here because of the auto-parts supply chain that moves freely back and forth across the border. The markets are heavily intertwined and have been for decades. E.g. Ford Canada is just as old as Ford in the US.
  - conorcleary 1y ago
    They need to, for volume - Canada is outsized

vladvasiliu 1y ago

They can also be incoherent. Don't know about Canada, but here in France we also have a bunch of auto manufacturers and the government seems completely lunatic with these policies. 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.

amrocha 1y ago
The Paris government reducing car usage in the city is not the same politicians that are subsidizing the national car industry.
- vladvasiliu 1y ago
  I'm not convinced there's that big a of a difference as you seem to imply. 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.