ELECTION SEASON BRINGS PROMISE OF MORE E-VEHICLES
Lord have mercy, we’re heading to the polls — and what a beggar’s banquet we have to choose from. A seemingly rag-tag bunch, to say the least. So I’ll stick with the policy promises that might affect the cars we drive.
LIBERALS
Trudeau’s team has already enacted its auto-related programs. We now have a rebate of up to $5,000 for various forms of plug-in electrified vehicles that extends from coast to coast. The only thing that can be said for sure is, despite the prognostication of EVs’ staunchest proponents, the sale of plug-in vehicles is still largely dependent on subsidization.
Liberals may add a 10 per cent rebate on used EVs (to a maximum of $2,000). That means the buyers of second-hand electric vehicles will doubly benefit from government largesse, because used EV depreciation is typically based on after-rebate transactional costs.
The Trudeau government’s carbon tax plan — at least the one it will talk about — is well known. Basically, we’ll see taxes on a litre of gas increase 2.2 cents per year. No one is going to jettison even the most gas-guzzling of F-150s because the price of gas goes up 2.2 cents a year. So there’s virtually no chance the carbon tax will have any real effect on the driving habits of Canadians.
CONSERVATIVES
Andrew Scheer’s promise to repeal the current carbon tax is as shallow a promise to his faithful as Trudeau’s. I will leave it to you to determine if that supposition is vote worthy.
As for specific EV policy, Scheer has not so far promised to retract Trudeau’s EV subsidization. However, if a recent Abacus Data poll is at all accurate — it says 89 per cent of Canadians are in favour of subventing EV purchases — the current subsidies are simply too popular to completely abolish.
NDP
If there’s a reason the NDP seems in a deep malaise, it’s that Singh’s policies are just more of the same. For instance, the NDP has promised to up Trudeau’s ante to $15,000 per car, but only if said electric vehicle is built in Canada, and right now the only vehicle qualifying would be the Chrysler Pacifica. To further incentivize local production, Singh has promised a further $300 million to resurrect the Automotive Innovation Fund with a focus on the development of zero-emissions vehicles.
If we estimate — and this is definitely a wild guess — that Singh’s three-times larger incentives increase sales by 10,000 a year over the Liberals’ plans, that would work out to a subsidy of $21,000 for each additional EV sold over the next five years. Not only that, the total would probably bolster the market share of EVs in Canada by less than half a per cent. And because EVs require less labour to build, there would probably be few new jobs.
GREEN PARTY
As you might expect from a party that holds but two seats in Parliament and no real hope of power, Elizabeth May’s platform is big on grandiosity but sparing in reality. So, while cancelling the Trans Mountain pipeline is easily promised, and her claim she will upgrade Canada Post’s fleet to electric vehicles does make some sense, her commitment to reduce Canada’s greenhouse emissions by 60 per cent by 2030 and to “net-zero” by 2050 sounds a little Timothy Leary-like.
Ditto her promise to make EVs affordable. Her plan to exempt EVs from federal sales taxes barely puts a dent in the affordability problem. Even more phantasmagorical is her plan to ban sales of gas-powered cars by 2030.
BLOC QUEBECOIS
By definition, the Bloc should be largely concerned with local politics or, more accurately, politics that affect its locals. But, with polls showing that Yves-François Blanchet may well serve as kingmaker in the next Parliament, suddenly his policies take on national importance. In the automotive realm, the big question is if the Bloc could force whoever its partner is to spread Quebec’s draconian EV program across the country. In La Belle Province, government decree requires that automakers increase their sales of zero-emissions vehicles by three per cent per year until, in 2025, 22 per cent of all cars sold in Quebec are electric.
That sounds wonderful, except when you consider the success of governments past in forcing manufacturers to sell products consumers don’t want. Quebec will not reach its 2025 goals, and extending the policy will just make the failure larger.
Driving.ca