- Canada is delaying a plan to force automakers to hit minimum sales levels for electric vehicles by 2026, a concession to manufacturers in a sector that has been upended by tariffs.
- The government will launch a review of the "electric vehicle availability standard" to make sure it doesn’t create burdens on automakers, instead of implementing the target that required at least 20% of sales to be zero-emission vehicles by the model year 2026.
- The auto industry has been lobbying for months to change the EV mandate, arguing that the targets were unrealistic and would add costs and put jobs at risk.
Canada is delaying a plan to force automakers to hit minimum sales levels for electric vehicles by 2026, a concession to manufacturers in a sector that has been upended by tariffs.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government will make the announcement Friday as one of a series of measures to help companies in the industries most affected by US President Donald Trump’s trade war, according to people familiar with the matter, speaking on condition they not be identified.
Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, had passed rules that required automakers to ensure that at least 20% of sales were zero-emission vehicles by the model year 2026. But the government won’t implement that target now: instead, it will launch a review of the so-called “electric vehicle availability standard” to make sure it doesn’t create burdens on automakers, the people said.
The Trudeau regulations raised the bar over time so that by 2035, all new cars and light trucks sold in Canada would have to be emissions-free.
It’s another illustration of how Carney, who took over in March, is unwinding some policies of the Trudeau era, partly because of the pressures of the trade war. The prime minister has withdrawn many retaliatory tariffs on US products, scrapped a carbon tax on consumers’ use of fossil fuels and ditched a new tax on digital services after Trump complained about it.
The auto industry has been lobbying for months to change the EV mandate, arguing that the targets were unrealistic and would add costs and put jobs at risk. In June, about 8% of new vehicles sold in Canada were zero-emission.
“These targets were made up by the government, not based on any sound assessment of real market dynamics,” Brian Kingston, chief executive officer of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, said in an interview in August. The CVMA represents
General Motors Co.,
Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler parent
Stellantis NV, all of which have manufacturing operations in the province of Ontario.
Under the electric vehicle mandate, manufacturers that failed to meet the sales targets would have been forced to restrict sales of internal combustion engine vehicles or buy credits from companies like
Tesla Inc., Kingston said.
The Canadian auto industry is highly integrated with the US sector and is under threat from the Trump administration’s tariffs on foreign-made vehicles. GM and Stellantis have both curtailed production at their assembly plants in the province of Ontario since the trade war began.
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