Canada relies on foreign auto executives for its auto industry. It already provides huge taxpayer subsidies per job. There is certainly a possible future where all of those foreign loyal companies side with US to destroy Canadian auto production/investment.
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China could help save Canadian auto industry by providing motors and batteries for Canadian made EVs. Chinese investment to make goods from Canadian resources in Canada is a path for scale that includes global export potential of autos and other industrial goods to whole globe including China.
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If it doesn’t make economic sense to make our own tube socks, it doesn’t make sense to make overly expensive cars, either. There is a stronger national security argument for apparel, that needs yearly replacements, than solar, batteries, and autos that last 20+ years. More so, when they are not dependent on continuous international fuel supply chains/geopolitics.
Pressure on foreign executives to support Canadian production includes access to Canadian market. The stability of status quo will appeal to most people. But the threat/plan B of cooperation with China is both a path to manufacturing and resource FDI paid by China instead of taxpayers, and better quality of life through better value goods.
Canada heavily investing in electrified public transit would do a lot more for the economy and the environment than any EV deal with any country. It also has a side effect of supporting denser housing which could help us get out of our housing crisis.
Canada will still need EVs for people who would rather drive or live rurally but our focus should be reducing the reliance on cars. EVs are massively energy and resource ineffcient compared to transit and transit can be made accesible to more people.
Our Canadian EV bus maker is about to go bankrupt (Lion Electric).
A big issue for them is a lot of their manufacturing happens in the US, I don’t see things getting better for them considering current events
Car culture and city/road design is very much a function of the importance of auto industry. Your transportation priorities are easier to push for when auto lobby is not also a job lobby.
This is a good idea I hadn’t thought of.
Could do this in partnership with EU companies too.
If the manufacturers we have here don’t want to make EVs, we have no EV manufacturing jobs to protect. Unless we’re planning to live on ICE vehicles into the climate crisis, we have to get a source of EVs. The options are import and FDI (foreign direct investment (build factories here)). FDI is probably preferable since it gives us the ability to make the vehicles we use. If we go for import, we probably want the cheapest possible deal that fits the bill, unless we want to pay extra for a good reason. E.g. we may want to buy European. Of course we have to ask whether that’s worth the cost given that they source some of their components from China. I think some European autos are planning to use Chinese platforms for their vehicles. At that point it may or may not make sense to pay the premium. That differs from maker to maker. E.g. Renault’s latest EVs seem EU-made. More broadly, the less in corporate profits we pay for our EVs, the more money are left in our pockets to spend on other Canadians. The cheaper the EVs, the less the cost of Canadian businesses using them is and the more competitive they are.
The key is batteries. Honda is supposed to be making a battery factory (and whole EVs) in Ontario. It is a key “sensible option” to continue supporting. But there has to be a threat of abandoning all product sales from manufacturers who abandon Canada.
Chinese technology for battery plants in Canada using Canadian materials (other than lithium) can make good value EVs in Canada. I don’t know that Honda can do the same.
The Stellantis factory in Windsor seems to be on track to make cells this year. But someone has to put them in cars. Cars that are affordable.
Is Honda doing it here to ship to the US?
Not an expert, but it is/was a $16B plant investment made during a time when shipping to US would be tariff free. All Canadian plants export some to US.
Make sure that they transfer all the technologies required to build the cars to Canada, just like they did to the western companies who want to do business in China
Didn’t Trudeau make a number of tax ince tive deals relating to EV production years ago?
The issue now is likely tarrif related.
What we need is an auto pact with China. A tit-fr-tat cross-border supply chain. They make cars in Canada, buy parts from the Canadian supply chain for cars they make in China. and everyone wins.
Chinese Don"t need any supply chain help, they have incredibly good domestic supply chains.
Not completely. Even given China’s enormous manufacturing capacity, there are still gaps in it. China very definitely prioritizes the manufacturing, even after the opening up of the economy to private entrepreneurs. For instance, it has delegated cities of well over a million people each to a dedicated task - one to robotics and the other to quantum computing. Everything in the city - infrastructure, education, facilities, governance - is directed towards these focus centers of excellence.
If it is not high on the government priority list, it is fair game to outside countries to fill the gap. America just does not want to manufacture what China wants. If Canada decides to do so,the opportunities are there.
No.
- Their labour standards are way too low which means countries with good standards cannot compete (tariffs can balance this out though)
- They’re a foreign adversary so we should minimize our tech reliance on them as much as possible
- We don’t “need” cheap cars
Their labour standards are way too low which means countries with good standards cannot compete (tariffs can balance this out though)
This is politicized, but is more credibly claimed in construction and lower value manufacturing. Their EV advantage is based on robotics and battery tech.
They’re a foreign adversary so we should minimize our tech reliance on them as much as possible
This is just something we copy from US. There’s a need to befriend lesser enemies, though China has never threatened us.
This is just something we copy from US. There’s a need to befriend lesser enemies, though China has never threatened us.
Nonsense. They’re an existential threat to good allies like Taiwan and Hong Kong, and support other threats including Russia and North Korea.
Edit: And if you need specific risks to Canada, don’t forget the Chinese police stations, the 2 Michaels being detained, and interfering with our elections.
I feel like they def have issues, Taiwan, Tibet, Uyghurs, human rights record, general authoritarianism.
They also seem to have a better climate change story than anyone in north america, and USA has totally shown itself to be a mercurial alley.
I don’t see what advantage high tariffs have on something we want more of (EV’s). If the standards suck, then I’m ok with bringing them up to standard and charging for that.
Making this an either or “they are or aren’t our enemies” seems unnecessary, when we could buy their things and put pressure on them to do better on the things at the top.
They also seem to have a better climate change story than anyone in north america
They lied about covid numbers, so I don’t really trust their pollution numbers either, but they make some kind of “one step forwards, two steps back” progress because they keep building new coal power plants.
and USA has totally shown itself to be a mercurial alley.
The US is absolutely a shithole now, I don’t think we should look to them for EVs either.
I don’t see what advantage high tariffs have on something we want more of (EV’s). If the standards suck, then I’m ok with bringing them up to standard and charging for that. Making this an either or “they are or aren’t our enemies” seems unnecessary, when we could buy their things and put pressure on them to do better on the things at the top.
So, Trump kind of ruined saying tariffs as a solution to anything, but they are a tool to apply pressure to trade partners. Huge tariffs on Chinese EVs isn’t contributing to our cost of living crisis, because we can get EVs from elsewhere for decent prices, and because EVs are a super luxury item anyway.
There’s no pressure applied if we buy their EVs at cost. We don’t realistically have enough global political power to apply any political pressure either.
We don’t realistically have enough global political power to apply any political pressure either.
Right, so why bother, it seems like we are just hurting canadians by having tariffs on evs
Because we can apply economic pressure.
No one is being hurt by not being able to buy a cheap Chinese EV.
Their labor standards are a LOT higher than those in the US.
Hell no.
No thanks. I don’t trust them after what they did to Nortel. It’s much better for Canada to build a high-speed train line and more LRTs all across Canada because:
- Building transit allows us to train our workers for these types of projects. Workers gain new skills which can be used for more transit projects.
- Relying on auto manufacturing results in federal and provincial governments dumping billions of investment incentives into these companies for production runs that are essentially limited time only. Once the production run is up after 5 or so years, they ask the government for more money again or they threaten to move production.
- Makes our communities walk-able, safer, and makes travelling more convenient.
- Our roads in major cities are already at or above capacity and we can’t keep jamming our roads with more and more cars.
Totally agree we should invest more in trains and other forms of transit. Especially in areas where it would relieve a lot of car traffic like the Toronto to Montreal route. I dream off a day where I could ditch my car and be easily able to travel between those cities without breaking the bank, or being stuck with freight rail traffic. Honestly I think I would settle for VIA having more priority on the rails. The travel time isn’t that bad when compared to driving. The costs and the uncontrolled delays are really killer.
With that being said, I think Canada would be better off aligning their tariffs on China with the EU. I don’t think we need to cut of China completely but we would be better off aligning with the EU and keeping our options open to have a diverse set of trading partners instead of relying on one big partner like we do now with the US.
No, we’re just going to switch one master to another. It’s better to build factories that make something we can use in Canada like mass transit vehicles and vehicles made for harsh winters.
Internalizing mass transit vehicles reduces the cost of production and makes it easier to build a larger transit network with shorter wait times. Once you can build commuter train systems, it’s a shorter step to build freight trains. The factories can keep running by switching between passenger and freight trains.
Vehicles that can operate better in Canadian and Arctic land and waters can be sold in Canada, and the income generated recirculate more in Canada.
