Fuck china and their spy hardware on wheels.
Canada has a fascist eyeing up on its ass while a pseudo-communist, quasi-state capitalist is giving him the sultry look from across the waters. Not exactly a good position to be in.
Kind of a tangent, but everytime I read “need a more nuanced…” In regards to regulation, from an industry person or a politician, I can’t help but assume they are just trying to create some kind of loophole to massively exploit something they weren’t already allowed to
The threat of Chinese EVs is absolutely necessary to support for any non traitorous Canadian.
No one has firm plans to make EVs in Canada. The threat can at very least get “best offers” of investment and commitments to Canada that might be better for Canadian economy, even if it helps destroy climate. Cannibalism was always going to be preferred over human sustainability.
Canada benefits from investment. If every other company in the world is too afraid of Trump to invest in Canada, then Canada needs China. The end. Obviously, a trade deal would include an investment deal.
Canada is a giant global auto market equal to UK for 7th place. Measured in over priced vehicles too. Significant boost to Canadian standard of living to have access to better value EVs, which are already better value cars than ICE engine alternatives. Quieter, faster, power your home in emergency, urban life quality for non drivers.
When Canada removed DST, not only did we get zero in return from US government, the tech companies that avoided the tax didn’t even show any gratitude with data center or other investments in Canada. ONLY flirting with non US colonies can Canada get any investments (or genuine defense commitments) from US and its colonies.
“No one has firm plans to make EVs in Canada” - Not true, Canada had and still has Lion Electric for example. All Canadian schools should get their buses there. It’s a great place for adoption to start. They also had/have trucks. Lack of support from Canada is shameful.
Didn’t Lion Electric go bankrupt?
There was a big bet/hope on Honda battery facility. AFAIK, its on hold for perpetuity until Trump doesn’t scare Honda anymore, which won’t happen, because any future president/US politician will like that Honda is a sycophant to it. Lion counts a little bit, busses actually very important emissions sources, but it’s relatively small part of Canadian transportation.
School buses carry 100% of future car buyers and those who experiment EVs don’t go back to ICE.
Canada is a large car market. More importantly, vehicles manufactured here will eventually be exported to the US when their policy corrects.
And we will not round up your works in chains like they are doing in the US at the moment (eg. Hyundai).
Investment in Canada ? How soon we forget the lesson NorTel taught us.
That was quite a while ago, but if you want a trade/investment deal to make those pensions whole, idc. It would be peanuts. Any Nortel design expertise being in Canada to help new Huawei subsidiary, with SMIC chip plants in Canada would be a more progressive offer to improve Canada.
Threaten Apple, Google, Nvidia markets if you want to get US friendliness. Grumble about the past to remain CIA colony.
We lifted all the tariffs on the US as a “gesture of goodwill” to Big Daddy Trump and yet keep these stupid tariffs on China that are crushing our lumber and agriculture industries into dust out west, in order to protect some token auto industry jobs building gas-guzzling American cars. Feels like we’re already the 51st state and Trump is just going to make it official.
Once cheap imported EVs is sold in Canada, there’s no way for Canada to build its own EV industry, which would remove the demand for batteries to be made in Canada
we are never going to build our own ev industry in time for it make any difference, the only places doing it are incredibly niche small companies making “kei trucks” and buses for public transit, or parts and assembly for foreign companies. and it would take decades for us to achieve a similar quality product that china has right now, if ever, and never at an affordable price in comparison.
the reason everyone isnt driving electric is because we dont have the availability, infrastructure, and pricing that makes it worthwhile.
we can 100% still make batteries and offer alternate solutions with said batteries rather than using them to create our “own ev line” we could make drop in battery/motor conversion kits for instance. for bikes, cars, trucks, buses, whatever you can imagine.
also we could use them to create and maintain municipal public transit, like torontos/vancouvers rental ebikes, except not privately owned. buses are already being converted as well. (looking at you winnipeg)
having locally made batteries will never not be valuable. having additional options and RnD cant hurt.
realistically speaking. theres zero chance we will be able to ever offer a more affordable and similar quality all canadian EV vehicle line up in the next several decades. thats a pipe dream.
but batteries, and the stuff to make them, will only go up in demand. and its possible that domestic batteries some day might be cheaper, if we play our cards right.
Then it doesn’t make sense as an industry for us.
Why does Canada tariff them? Do they have domestic production they are protecting?
We do manufacturer some cars
The government justified its “tariff fortress” by pointing to China’s extensive industrial policy, such as subsidies, that artificially lower production costs. The tariffs were claimed to protect domestic producers by offsetting the cost advantage enjoyed by Chinese EV manufacturers.
I don’t get this argument. Europe makes and exports EVs. Japan and Korea do too. Buy from them if you don’t want something US branded. Build EVs in Canada.
Canada does not have the technical knowledge to build EVs. We make trucks with 1960s technology, or assemble vehicles designed in Japan. There is no point in making EVs in Canada when sales are barely 6%. The problem here is not manufacturers, it’s Canadian men who define their masculinity by the size of truck they buy, and then politicians who subsidize fuel for them.
Canada does not have the technical knowledge to build EVs.
It’s true that we have expertise in machining. We do have cheaper metal sources, and lithium and rare earth resources that could be used to leverage Chinese automation for batteries, motors, gigapresses, and then use Canadian assembly workers to finish the cars.
The future is about engineering and design, and Canadian sustainability means avoiding anchoring ourselves to dead ender energy and processes.
Ford was saying yesterday “We need to protect the $46B government has invested in EV transition”. First, that is an absurd subsidy level, but to your point, it was always meant as a grift, because “real Canadians” don’t know how to make EVs.
With Chinese (or any other if they are volunteering) investment, in long term, it is technology transfer to Canadians. We’re too stupid to do anything disruptive/progressive is the path to staying stupid and falling behind.
Canada should not be doing business with either country. When we can, we should decouple from both entirely.
No need to make nice with hostile dictatorships. Especially when those hostile dictatorships are constantly attacking our country and citizens on a regular basis.
Buy a bike. Electric cars are not the answer.
The rural parts of Canada would like to have a word. A bike ain’t gonna cut it unless your young and single and living in a city.
And even then a lot of cities aren’t set up to make bike travel easy.
Years ago, in the before times, the office I worked at was within biking distance of my house and I routinely biked there. It was nice. Then they moved the office downtown and it was either a half-hour commute by car, an hour long commute by bus, and I-don’t-know-how-long-by-bike-because-fuck-that-epic-journey commute by bike. I bussed a lot, but that meant I was wasting an hour of my time each day. I wasn’t fond of that. I hadn’t entirely settled on which approach was better overall before Covid hit and I never went back to that office again by either route.
There happens to be a grocery store within biking distance of my house. I drive a car there anyway, because even living solo I still like to get several weeks worth of groceries when I go shopping. No way am I hauling cargo like that on a bike even if I had a trailer for it.
I had a bike living in the rural parts of Canada, and used it to get everywhere within the 50-100 kms I needed to go.
in Winter?
Both economies are too big for that to be feasible.
Buy a bike. Electric cars are not the answer.
yeah right… bikes are awesome in the 6 months winter most of us have to survive yearly in Canada
Right, a bike. That’s going to help me bring all those groceries home, it’ll be an okay form of transport when it’s raining or -30°C, when I need to go across the city on an errand or appointment, when I need to give someone a lift, when I’m visiting a relative who lives the next city over, and so forth and so on.
I have 4 kids. Comments telling me to put their groceries and hockey gear in a basket are hilarious.
What? D: You don’t have $7,000 to spend on a bakfiets that couldn’t even fit all your stuff anyway?
And glossing over the weather with “wear a raincoat” or “wear warm clothing”, too. People are aware this is the canada@lemmy.ca community, yes? A lot of Canadian cities get weather where it’s downright deadly to be outside for extended periods.
If you enjoy biking and you can make it work for you in your personal circumstances, sure, by all means go ahead and bike. But don’t car-shame those who don’t.
I lived in Northern Canada for most of my life. -40 to -50 without a wind chill was normal. We put on warm clothes to go outside for extended periods.
I will car shame anyone in a major city with a vehicle. Mass transit exists.
Well bully for you. My time, safety, and comfort are worth a couple of dollars’ of gasoline to me.
Your refusal to understand or accept that other people have different priorities and circumstances than you do doesn’t help you win any debates.
I am not here to debate you or anyone else. If you wish to choose to use something for your convenience that damages the environment, costs more than its worth, and pretend like you are safe behind the wheel that is absolutely your choice.
Just know you are being judged because you are a huge part of the problem, and seemingly joyfully so.
Take care.
I am not here to debate you or anyone else.
<Proceeds to make a comment full of criticisms of positions you disagree with and insulting those who hold them>
Yeah, good job at not-debating.
Easy solutions to all of these complaints:
bring all those groceries home
Panniers, baskets, racks, cargo bikes if you have very large grocery runs
when it’s raining
Wear a rain coat, put fenders on the bike
or -30°C
Wear warm clothes
when I need to give someone a lift
Go for a bike ride with your friend, or call them a cab if they are not capable of it
when I’m visiting a relative who lives the next city over
Rent a car, take a bus or train, or if you are feeling frisky, do an extra long bike ride there and stay overnight
and so forth and so on
All your concerns are very easily addressed, but still glosses over the fact that nobody has said that you should sell your car and do everything by bike. Replace the trips you can with bike rides and you will have more joy in your life while also helping the environment.
That only works in the most urban locations. There is no way I am getting anywhere with a bike where I live. Even my horse would be a better choice but also that is impossible.
If you truly live in an area too remote to access any shops or services by bicycle or e-bike, then my post is not meant for you. Most people in Canada live in urban areas and are capable of replacing some car trips with bicycle trips.
Ages ago I used to live downtown. I was biking even less. It’s not safe most of the time. Let alone when hauling stuff. Very few people would actually be able to (mostly) replace a car with a bike. There are also many issues (time, physical abilities etc.) with actual meaningful use of bikes. I am not talking the odd bike ride to get a new book or so. Our country, climate, society and city design isn’t made for lots of biking. Should you bike as much as you can? Sure but it’s not a viable sub for cars.
Our country, climate, society and city design isn’t made for lots of biking
I do agree we need more bicycle infrastructure but commuting and shopping by bike are very doable for many different kinds of people. I know this because I do it and I see others do it every day.
Most car trips are under 5 km. That is a distance that could be easily covered by bike in about 15 to 20 minutes. I think a lot of people could replace a lot of car trips with bike trips without much issue at all.
You clearly have not ever ridden a bike in winter.
I ride my bike every winter, it’s really not a big deal if you wear warm clothes. The biggest issues arise when cities dont plow bike paths
I do have a both a bike and a car. Basically everything I do is better done with the car. Cheaper, easier, faster, more comfortable.
Its cheaper to drive than ride a bike? I highly doubt that. Perhaps you should try an e-buke though. You may find that far easier, faster, and more comfortable than a regular bicycle and depending on where you live, it may be faster than a car too.
Regardless, the point isn’t necessarily to be doing the thing that is always the most convenient and most comfortable, the point is making choices that are good for the environment and good for both mental and physical health.
The comment I’m responding to said:
but still glosses over the fact that nobody has said that you should sell your car and do everything by bike.
In this scenario I have both a car and a bike on hand. The car’s been paid for. The insurance is being paid for regardless of whether I’m using it at any given moment. So the only expense is gas.
“That’s still more expensive than driving a bike!” You might respond. To which I counter: is your personal time and effort worthless? How much is an extra hour of your time spent pedalling a bike worth to you? It’s worth a lot more to me than the cost of the gas I’d spend making the trip an hour quicker.
the point is making choices that are good for the environment and good for both mental and physical health.
The point is people making choices for me.
You go ahead and ride a bike around if you want to. Don’t make the choice for me. You don’t know me, you don’t know my circumstances and priorities and preferences.
Nobody is making choices for you. You make your own choices to drive, I am just saying that you can make another choice that would be better for the environment, better for your health, and far cheaper than buying an EV.
is your personal time and effort worthless? How much is an extra hour of your time spent pedalling a bike worth to you?
I find the time and effort spent riding a bike to get places pretty enjoyable and I think a lot of other people too do. Plus it means less time needed at the gym. I dont know where you live, but most people live within 5 km of grocery stores, shops, etc. Which is maybe a 15 to 20 minute bike ride, not an hour. I somehow doubt an extra ten or fifteen minutes to go somewhere is going to ruin your day.
Nobody is making choices for you.
The story is literally about tariffs on cars.
I am just saying that you can make another choice
Of course I can. I could choose to walk everywhere barefoot. I’m not going to, though, for the reasons I’ve explained.
Plus it means less time needed at the gym.
I don’t spend time in a gym anyway. I am fit enough and I have better uses of my time and money. Most people don’t go to a gym.
I dont know where you live, but most people live within 5 km of grocery stores, shops, etc. Which is maybe a 15 to 20 minute bike ride, not an hour.
In other comments in this thread I’ve mentioned there’s a grocery store very close to where I live, it’s about 5 minutes to bike there. But I don’t, because even when the weather is nice I still need to haul groceries.
Cheaper, easier, faster, more comfortable.
And worse for your health.
You don’t know me. I spend an hour each day walking my dog, I get plenty of exercise.
Not even a joke, someone on a bike was struck by a car and killed just a few blocks away from me this very morning; fourth one in the past few years in this area.
“Buy a bike,” is such privileged shit, dude. Most people in Canada do not live in a place where bikes are a viable option. I don’t have an extra three hours in my day that also puts me at substantially higher risk of bodily harm. If they’re not affluent hobbyist the most common bike rider is someone who cannot afford the expense of a vehicle and are exploited much more heavily by our public transport system.
Car dependency is certainly an existential issue that manifests in Canada’s city planning, cost of living, and environmental footprint. What you just said, that people’s choices are the problem, is exactly the narrative the state and capitalists would like you to subscribe to. It is a systemic issue remedied only by decades of consistent advocacy and action.
Why don’t you take a look at the authorities in Canadian territory that have fought tooth and nail to defend system we have for the better part of the last century?
Infrastructure is not the best for cyclists I agree and I dont blame you for feeling unsafe for riding your bike. Everyone has a different threat model though and most Canadians live in large urban areas with large and expanding bike networks that they can take advantage of. That might not mean commuting to work by bike but maybe trips like going to the grocery store or the dentist can be replaced by bike trips.
I do agree that safe cycling infrastructure is one of the largest barriers to getting people on bikes, but let’s not pretend that there is some big modern day conspiracy against bike lanes. It’s everyday people who fight tooth and nail against every bike lane that is proposed because they will take away parking or driving lanes. Doug Ford might have a personal vendetta against bike lanes but many many people support this vendetta and support Ford because he is trying to remove them.
I’m so tired of privileged people in the city talking down to everyone else like we don’t know how cities work (“different threat models” fuck outta here with that bullshit). I’ve lived in cities ranging from 200k to 700k and guess what? There isn’t bike infrastructure; you share the road and there’s some adequate bike-lanes in affluent neighbourhoods that I don’t give a shit about. In the city I’m currently in, bike-lanes share a merge with turning lanes f so nooooobody uses them because they don’t want to get nailed by some douchebag in a light truck who can’t even see past the steering wheel. Nobody is talking about a conspiracy, this is the reality of neoliberal politics and the ruins of suburban sprawl. When I say, “authorities” I’m referring to the systems of power that operate in opposition to workers and the land that relegates decisions for infrastructure to affluent land-owners who couldn’t give a shit less about sustainability or accessibility. I also saw you put “wear warm clothes” as a response to someone saying that dangerous winter weather makes bikes impractical like you’re on some Marie Antoinette shit. Don’t talk to me like you understand any of this when it’s obvious you haven’t actually had to live in different places in this country.
Regardless of that, car-dependency makes biking distances prohibitively expensive in the one way that you clearly have never had to think about: time. I do not have the fucking time to bike to my dentist or grocery store – even if I had a backfiets that could actually carry groceries – when everything is spaced out to accomodate cars. It’s nice that you have time for that, most people have work and responsibilites that puts their time at a premium and that makes biking a very low priority on how to live sustainably. I cannot afford to bike. Everything you’ve said speaks from the distorition that individual choice is a primary vector for change when we know that systemic causes for decisions, like driving instead of biking, provide more effective explanations and paths to real change. You subscribe to the very narratives that are used to reproduce this unsustainable way of life and have the gall to sit there and act like you know better than others. -
Im confused by your animosity when I mostly agree with you, but nothing I’ve said is wrong. Different people are comfortable with different levels of risk when biking but that does not mean it can’t be done. Cold weather biking is very doable in cities with warm clothing and if needed, studded tires. People go outside in cold weather to walk and for recreation all the time, biking is not some bizarre activity that is impossible to do in the cold. I’ve biked in places with cold snowy winters and places with mild slushy winters, if theres been a lot of snow that hasn’t been cleared yet, I usually opt for transit on those days. If I am not comfortable riding a bike in those conditions though, I certainly wont be comfortable driving.
car-dependency makes biking distances prohibitively expensive in the one way that you clearly have never had to think about: time
This is an argument that I find surprising. Maybe Im not as good at scheduling as other people but if a 5 minute car ride turns into a 15 or 20 minute bike ride, is that really that much extra time? Is your whole day going to be ruined? Or a 15 minute car commute turns into a 30 or 40 minute bike commute, is that extra time really not worth the cost savings? Not to mention the time you dont have to spend at the gym now. There are loads of people that choose to live somewhere where they have to spend over an hour commuting to and from work by car. Personally I think an hour long commute by bike would be much more pleasant.
I see a lot of lame excuses as to why people cant ride their bikes. But most of these are solvable problems. Safe infrastructure is, in my opinion, the only factor that needs to be addressed to get people on bikes. Unfortunately we have administrations that are actively adversarial against this sort of change. Rather than tell people that it is hopeless to try to ride a bike in our society, I am telling people that it is very much possible to make the choice to ride a bike if you are dtermined enough. If people are saying that they cant bike places because its too cold or too rainy or too far, I am going to give them solutions, I am not going to just say that our infrastructure is too awful to support that choice in the first place. The best way to get people advocating for safe cycling infrastructure is to get more people on bikes. Im sorry that you’ve given up on change.
You misunderstand, what you said was rude enough on its own to warrant animosity. You fundamentally do not understand what you are talking about because you lack the basic empathy and systemic knowledge to even identify the problem; you have presumed that by the grace of god you have divine answers and never questioned why you think what you think. Who benefits from such a shallow narrative?
“Personally I think an hour long commute by bike would be much more pleasant.”
I know that may come as a shock to you, people are not just dumber than you. Most people do in fact make good decisions based on what resources they have available to them, and time is extremely limited for us poor peasants who have to work for a living. It does not matter if you think infrastructure is the only reasonable barrier and most people are just big lazy dumdums, because infrastructure is not getting fixed in most places in this country. As with many Canadians, I do not live in a place where it is safe or practical to use a bike regularly, that is a fact. The closest grocery stores to me are about forty minutes round trip by bike and would require me to traverse a six lane highway to access, that is not acceptable when it is a ten minute drive with nearly zero risk to my body. Yes, that is too much time because again, this may be shocking to you, people with work and responsibilities also have significantly limited energy in their day that would be expended not only by the biking itself, but the stress of risking your life to make the trip. People who work fucking forty to sixty hours a week on swing shifts with kids are not obligated give up whatever time and energy they have to maintain their health and home to force the use of a bicycle to make up for being forced to have a car. It is pointless.
Your comfort is irrelevant, I do not give a shit if this reality makes the world more incomprehensible to you. Grow up, not everyone has your resources and you’ve been privileged enough to get what you’ve had.
Unreal level of pompous douchebag energy here, I will not be paying attention to you and I will not read whatever bullshit response you cobble together.
The only person making assumptions her is you who seems to believe im some wealthy city-dwelling socialite who doesn’t work for a living. I ride my bike because its less stressful and cheaper than owning a car. I could hardly afford a car if I even wanted to.
You give all these reasons why you cant ride a bike and that’s fine, those are your reasons. But you act like everyone else is in the exact same position as you and everyone just simply is not able to ride a bike even if they wanted to. That simply is not true, lots of people are in a position where they can bike but choose not to. Im tired of people acting like the reason they make these decisions is because they have no choice. Maybe thats true sometimes, but most of the times I think its just that people dont want to and we would all be better off if people were up front about it.
OP suggested we focus on bicycles instead of cars and a bunch of people come out saying “well bicycles dont work for me or anybody else” and I have been saying they can work for a lot of people if they just made the effort. This is apparently a privileged position? I didn’t realize living in the most populated city in the country makes me a privileged elite but apparently that’s all it takes.
someone on a bike was struck by a car and killed just a few blocks away from me this very morning
It’s is bike’s fault. Not culture’s fault.
I’m not sure if you just couldn’t understand my statement and attempted sarcasm here or if this is a genuinely bad response that unironically blames the bike. I’m clearly pointing to culture as the root cause of this, particularly the predominance of neoliberal politics and settler-colonial relationships with the land, so I assume it’s the former but that doesn’t apply.
How about instead of riding a bike you walk? Or are the evil capitalists attacking sidewalks now too?
It is absolutely your choice on how you decide to live, and you can find an extra three hours in a day to use transit, bike, or walk. Start by cutting out any screen time over an hour in a day and you will likely find an extra 5.
Take care.
What’s hilarious about this is that the road outside my place is in fact under construction right now and is not easily accessible by foot, it’s an extra ten minute walk to the next bus-stop and busses have been behind by half an hour to an hour as a result of the poor timing. Not everyone can live in the wealthy metropolises my guy, sorry that this shatters your morality.
“You can find extra three hours in a day to use transit, bike, or walk.” Nobody said anything about walking OR transit you privileged douchebag, this was about bicycles in car-dependent cities. So telling that you read this as “evil capitalist” as though it isn’t exactly fucking that system that has caused this. No, people do not in fact have three hours in a day that they just choose to not use. Some people work sixty hour weeks with children. “Screen time” as a cause for “wasted” time is fucking hilarious and a reminder of avacado toast as the root cause of wage stagnation.
Such inane liberal nonsense, you don’t want a better world you just want to feel better.
We went through this with Japan in the 80s. Get them to build here.
As for Chinese autos…is the media willfully ignorant at how close the Chinese EV industry is to implosion? BYD is months behind paying suppliers. All this is moot, in a year, most Chinese EV makers will be broke and the EVs will be in the world’s landfills within 5 years.
There is no business model. No one can tool up and build EVs in Canada to fight over what MAYBE will be 25% of sales in ten years. Canadians are not buying EVs.
This is the answer. We do not have Canadian car companies.
Why build American cars in Canada? Build European and Asian ones instead.
Trade the tariffs for new factories.
As for Chinese autos…is the media willfully ignorant at how close the Chinese EV industry is to implosion? BYD is months behind paying suppliers. All this is moot, in a year, most Chinese EV makers will be broke and the EVs will be in the world’s landfills within 5 years.
Are we sure about this? because the rumour mill had China imploding because of construction for the past 5 years…
Meanwhile Americans are driving around in BYD’s (Chinese cars)
I think you meant Australians
No they are not.
My bad, I thought they were.
Hopped into a Uber drivers car in Miami and remember thinking what type of Tesla is this? Had BYD written on the steering wheel. I guess in hindsight the car was imported privately.
