There is no way around this, from the perspective of the car buyer, looking for an inexpensive EV, Canadian EV policy is a mess. The Chinese are tariffed out at 100%, the federal incentive program crashed earlier this year and there is a 25% tariff on non-CUMSA compliant cars (pronounced Tesla EVs). All this means that buying an affordable new EV is nigh impossible. That craters the potential financial win of an EV, if you need to spend 50k plus to get one, its an uphill battle to leverage the lower operating costs of an EV.
To begin with, the list of electric vehicles made in Canada is pretty pathetic, and shown below (source).
So, unless you are in the market for a two door sports car (admittedly one with mixed reviews (source, and source)), or a delivery van, your EV is going to be imported. And yes, by the way, most Canadians are not looking at two door sports cars or delivery vans as their next vehicle (source). Even so, I find it most curious that both of these are being sold for ~ 60k, but looking at options etc. it seems their manufacturer really would prefer 80k. Don’t know about you, but thats not cheap.
This point is crucial, if we are going to have inexpensive EVs, they are going to be imported. Here is my first tip to policymakers: Stop the stupid Tariffs.
It will be hard to justify the 5k EV incentive, mostly owning to its cost ($5k x 268 k EVs sold in 2024 = $1.3 B (source)). Plus it only does half the job. I can get a 2025 brand new Mitsubishi Mirage for 20k, while the cheapest EV on sale in Toronto is a 2025 Mazda MX-30 for 30k. That 10k gap is only half closed by that 5k incentive. It really needs to be a 10k incentive, if it is to work.
But is a ~ 2B budget item for an EV incentive a realistic thing in a “tight” fiscal environment? Apparently Mr. Carney is probing his cabinet, looking for savings (source). I’m no politician, but something tells me a tweet announcing a 10k EV incentive is not going to work next to a twitter storm of angry posts by freshly laid off federal workers. Perhaps some of these tweets would say something like “EV incentive are not terribly equitable, as the EVs currently on offer are mostly at the luxury end of the price scale, at the same time as poverty rate hits record levels (source)”.
Besides, lets be honest here, the 5k EV incentive did nothing to bring about affordable (pronounced 20-30k Canadian) EVs, they all wound up costing exactly 45 – 55k.
There is my second tip to policymakers: Forget the EV incentive, and please please please just say so! Stop sabotaging EV sales today with unrealistic promises of “a future EV incentive” that Canada cannot afford.
Besides, existing EV owners complain to no end about the state of the charging infrastructure (source). Broken chargers, busy chargers and so on. There is something we can afford, over the past decade or so, Canada has spent perhaps $2B on EV charging infrastructure (source). That is quite the bargain compared to a $2B/yr incentive for the chosen few. Few hundred million a year, is much easier to do. Which brings me to tip number 3. Fund the chargers.
We need to shift the narrative that EVs are a play thing for the rich, to what they are, a practical climate friendly transport solution that works in automobile friendly cityscapes. To do that we need to tackle affordability, and that means coming to terms with imports. If you want a low-cost EV, chances are it or at least a large part thereof, is going to be imported. Europe might provide an example, where you can get a Dacia Spring a barebones EV, for 16 900 Euros (source), a little under 30k Canadian.
In fact, you can get an EV for about 30k Canadian today. There are two actually, the aforementioned Mazda MX 30, and the Fiat 500e (source). Promote this, try them out, talk to people who are driving them. And there is my tip number 4: Highlight the cheap EVs we have today, drive one yourself, or get some for your departments and staff.
But we could have so much more. There are loads of cheap EVs on sale in Europe (source). The Hyundai Insta, Wolkswagen ID 3, the Dacia spring, none are available here in Canada. So, here is my fifth tip: Dump the trade barriers, if its good enough to drive on a frozen lake in Finland, it will work just fine in Saskatchewan. These “safety standards” or more accurately minute differences between international standards and Canadian standards, are a trade-barrier and yes trade-barriers cost money, you pay the tariff, not your fairy godmother, or Santa Claus, you!.
Speaking of policy imports from Washington. That 100 % tariff on Chinese EVs is unreasonable, while not everyone is comfortable in a Whuling mini EV (source), they might be perfect for a city dweller that needs some help getting groceries home from the shops. Hence my last tip for policymakers: Let the Chinese in. That will put price pressure on everyone and ensure that we at least have access to cheap EVs. Somehow Mexico found a way to let the Chinese in, why can’t Canada?
Electric car adventures 