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China Canada Power Transportation

Canada To Impose 100% Tariff On Chinese-Made EVs (www.cbc.ca) 149

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday Canada will impose punitive tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles -- copying a similar initiative that the U.S. is already pursuing to stop a flood of what's been described as unfairly state-subsidized cars. Trudeau made the announcement at the federal cabinet retreat in Halifax where ministers are meeting to craft a strategy for the year ahead -- the last year before an expected federal election in October 2025. Amid industry pressure to copy the U.S. program, Trudeau said a 100 percent surtax will be levied on all Chinese-made EVs, effective Oct. 1. The tariff would effectively double the price of imported vehicles, as it is expected most of the tax would be passed on to consumers.

Ottawa is following through now, Trudeau said, to "level the playing field for Canadian workers" and allow Canada's nascent EV industry to compete at home, in North America and globally. The tariff will apply to electric and certain hybrid passenger automobiles, trucks, buses and delivery vans. Chinese brands like BYD are not a major player in Canada's EV market right now but imports from China have exploded in recent years as Tesla switched from U.S. factories for its Canadian sales to its manufacturing plant in Shanghai. The new tariff will apply to those Shanghai-made Teslas that are sold in Canada -- a development that is expected to force the U.S. automaker to supply the Canadian market with vehicles made at one if its other plants in the U.S. or Europe instead.
"Unfortunately, Canada made a decision today that will result in fewer affordable electric vehicles for Canadians, less competition and more climate pollution," said Joanna Kyriazis, director of public affairs at Clean Energy Canada. "Not only could today's announcement have a chilling effect on future EV sales, it could drive up EV prices and slow adoption in the near-term as well," Kyriazis said.

Flavio Volpe, the president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association who lobbied Ottawa to follow through with matching the U.S. tariffs, responded: "Sure, what the Chinese are doing is selling us green products that help fulfill some of our EV mandates, but they do it in a regulatory environment where they forgo any stewardship of the environment," he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland added that the Chinese industry is "built on abysmal labour standards and it is built on abysmal environmental standards."
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Canada To Impose 100% Tariff On Chinese-Made EVs

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  • by Tyr07 ( 8900565 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @04:26PM (#64737248)

    Where are the loads of people who should be shouting this is a fantastic win? First, we got rid of plastic straws. Now, cheap and affordable EV's becoming available from over seas!

    I mean, we need a carbon tax to encourage people to use ALTERNATIVES because big oil is so bad, and we need to charge more for everything and do it in the name of the environment.
    Okay cool, they literally handed you the golden goose, cheap electric vehicles at their expense.

    Fantastic. You should be all celebrating for the better impact on the environment, because in the past we were only worried about how much pollution CANADA emits only, based on population. Unless, it was a all scam and you're sacks of dog shit that was just concerned about profit in the name of 'for the environment' and someone is messing with your greed so you're taking action?

    • by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @04:35PM (#64737284) Homepage
      The Venn diagram of "people who want to stop China taking over manufacturing" and "people who want cheaper electric cars" has an intersection that causes some amount of antinomy.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

      Where are the loads of people who should be shouting this is a fantastic win?

      The gist of it is that yes, some people are totally happy doing the mental gymnastics to come to the conclusion that a bit more pollution and oil consumption is better than allowing whatever sort of economic shenanigans China is pulling to sell cheap EVs. If I didn't already own a used Chevy Bolt that I got a crazy good deal on due to a rather unlikely confluence of events (high ICE used car values, low EV used car values, a brand new battery due to the recall, and a tax credit on used EVs), I'd be a bit m

    • Canada's problem is population density plus northern climate. But Canada's problem is not the world's problem. Canada emits about 1.5 percent of the world's co2. Whether you carve it up into per capital or not is irrelevant. That's what you have to work with. So if you equalize the emissions to, say, the per capital emissions of the US... let me do the math... you fix the worldwide problem by approximately diddly / squat.

      • Canada's population is 0.5% of the world so that 3 more times the average. It matters even though its a small percentage of the total because that's an argument most countries will use. Most countries will just say oh its such a small portion it won't impact anything and then nothing gets done, its just an excuse to continue destroying the planet, we all need to do as much as we can. Sure it might not work, hell it probably won't work but doing nothing and saying there is nothing we can do certainly won't

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Tyr07 ( 8900565 )

          No you don't get to use the population argument.

          When a large portion of your population lives in poverty and can't afford to purchase products and services you can't act as if you're greener. You can only compare the per capita argument on similar standards of living. If you're argument is we should live like China so our per capita is down, that's a poor argument.

          If you were to measure the per capita of the wealthy people in China, you'd see their per capita grossly outweighs the rest.

          The same can be said

          • by vlad30 ( 44644 )

            Mcdonalds charges for bags now. Who the hell is not going to need a bag for most orders? You want to see how quickly that BS plays out, have a car of 4 people all ordering, and tell them you don't want a bag. You don't want to pay the extra, and it's better for the environment. You see how quickly it shows it's all about money once they stop charging for the bags and make it mandatory.

            Mcdonalds Bags Like plastic shopping bags are/were reused normally for collecting the other wrappers and packaging which makes it easier to put the whole lot in a bin helping clean up. The number of times I see where people unloaded there Mcdonalds wrappers in shopping centre car parks it is never in a bag additionally this has become worse since the plastic shopping bag ban. This ban in my opinion has been worse for the enviroment.

            BTW I found a magnetic clip for sunglasses https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B.. [amazon.com.au]

            • Paper bags decay in the environment rapidly. Plastic trash stays around for decades if not centuries.
              • Paper bags decay into methane and co2. plastic is a form of carbon capture and storage.

                • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
                  They don't decay into methane. Plastic is not a form of carbon capture, because it doesn't remove carbon from the atmosphere. Finally, there are more types of pollution than just CO2 pollution.
                  • "wood-rot fungi produce methane anaerobically without the involvement of methanogenic archaea via a new, halomethane-dependent pathway." - https://journals.asm.org/doi/1... [asm.org]

                    "One tonne of decomposing paper emits up to 90 kg of methane."
                    - https://open.library.ubc.ca/me... [library.ubc.ca].

                    my argument about plastic being carbon capture is albeit a cheeky one not meant to be serious. But I WILL tell you i firmly beleive plastic bags are better and more economical and environmentally freindly than paper ones or reusable ones. Y

                    • so, we should destroy all the forests and green spaces? The paper bag you are using came from a tree growing, either that tree would eventually die and rot or it would be turned into useful products that they themselves will eventually be disposed of and rot. The tree, during it's lifetime will most likely act as a carbon capture device as well as emitting useful (to most species) oxygen.

                      A plastic bag doesn't do those things.

                    • This argument is nonsense. we are a post "natural" forest world. not many trees in the developed world are cut down for timber that aren't in managed forests, and were not planted for the purpose of being timber. Remember reaping the California redwoods and most of the rainforest? Pepperidge Farms remembers.... and they are gone. there is more demand now than ever.

                • by flink ( 18449 )

                  plastic is a form of carbon capture and storage.

                  The carbon was already stored, IN THE GROUND, AS OIL. Just don't pump out the oil and make the plastic in the first place! The decay of the paper is just returning the what the tree took out of the atmosphere. It's a closed cycle.

                  • I suppose driving big oil consuming tractors and trucks to collect the wood doesn't factor into your equations. nor the fact that we use the forests faster than they can be replenished. and this will never be a solved problem. Not to mention the large swathes that keep getting burned down by "accident". (looking at you Canada)

                    Yes oil now it can be stored and be useful in my cupboard and then later back in the ground. The only villains here are the manufacturers of so called biodegradable plastics. these peo

            • I dunno somehow the rest of the world has managed where plastic bag charging has become a thing.

              Seems that it's only (North?) America which cannot cope with the idea of unlimited amounts of free plastic shit and responds somehow by using even more plastic.

        • You missed the point. The climate doesn't give a toss about how many people are tied to a particular molecule of Co2. That only matters to fulfill the emotional need some people have to assign blame.

          If you really want to fix the problem you apply pressure to the places where it truly matters. Canada is the 11th largest emitter, and insignificant next to the US and China.

          Most countries can't move the global needle. In fact, if the largest two don't, the rest of the world probably can't close the gap without

          • If you really want to fix the problem you apply pressure to the places where it truly matters.

            Which applying pressure to the people causing the most emissions which is the powerful and wealthy regardless of where they live. The idea that rich Canadians are exempt from having to change their behavior because there are fewer of them is ridiculous.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            China is moving the needle though, it's the US that is lagging. And even for China, they need to keep their foot on the accelerator.

            It's not just those two either, we have India and Brazil both coming up with large populations that are emitting more and more CO2.

            The reason why it matters for countries like Canada to go for net zero is that it helps develop the technology and reduce the cost, so other less wealthy countries can adopt it sooner. It also proves that the technology works even in extremes of col

      • Why are you worrying about Canadaâ(TM)s population density? Canada is highly urbanised and close to the US border. In fact Windsor (Detroit) to Quebec City is a huge proportion of the population. Furthermore, Toronto is the same latitude as Marseille in the south of France, yet far further north in Norway, electric cars are very successfully. As somebody who lived in Toronto for nearly a decade and cycled all year around, itâ(TM)s not that cold (probably the coldest day I cycled was -22C). Th

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      funny thing is that canada barely produces any electric vehicles, they are just now starting to adapt to some portion of the supply chain, e.g. for batteries. so, extreme as a 100% tariff is, this isn't even a protectionist move because there's really nothing to protect. the real motive will be anybody's guess ... but let's hope good canadian citizen will be pleased to pay a hefty premium for u.s. imported cars if mr trudeau asks politely.

      • by flink ( 18449 )

        I agree that 100% is probably too extreme, but if they do have an intention of developing an EV industry, it will never get off the ground if they have to compete with a product that is being dumped on the market. I'd argue that it is even more important for a developing market to protect itself, because there is no existing loyalty or reputation for domestic brands to use as a counterbalance to artificially low prices because any burgeoning brands won't have any history in the market.

    • Exactly. Plastic straws were the problem... Right. Not those tons of tar sands Canada turned into crude oil and burned it.
      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Tyr07 ( 8900565 )

        Right
        Percentage of CO2 emissions in the world - China 32.88% 12,667,428,430 tons.
        Canada - 1.51% 582,072,950 tons.

        Yes, clearly the oil in Canada is the problem.

        • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @09:13PM (#64738102) Homepage Journal

          Right -- so China emits roughly 22x the carbon. On the other hand it has roughly 36x the population. So on a per capita basis China emits only 2/3 the carbon Canada does, and about a quarter of that is for export goods. On top of that, Chinese per capita GDP is only about 20% of Canada's. So I *could* characterize what you're saying is that poor people who emit far less carbon for their personal use should bear the burden of carbon reduction, not wealthier people if they happen to live in a smaller country.

          But I wouldn't, because it's a lot more complex than that. Each country has opportunities and challenges to reducing carbon emissions. China is a big chunk of the world's carbon footprint, so even small marginal changes will have a huge impact. But Canada is relatively speaking a rich country, and if it had the political will it could probably improve its per capita carbon emissions, but it'd be politically painful since fossil fuels are about 12% of the country's GDP.

          • That 12% of GDP is Canada's entire energy sector. Canada exports a staggering amount of electricity to the US, mostly the northeast, representing about 3/4 of its energy sector revenues. Its fossil fuel sector is only 3.2%, for which is expels 40% of its GHG emissions burning coal to power the upgrading of bitumen from the oil sands into crude oil. Most of the coal burned is actually petcoke, the leftovers from upgrading bitumen into crude oil, which has even higher CO2 emissions than coal.

            But good luck con

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @05:24PM (#64737462)
      There's a small reduction in carbon emissions once you've accounted for everything but it's nothing drastic. If you care about the environment you're pushing for walkable cities and trains.

      I think Canada is smart to do this. The Chinese have a long history of dumping product to destroy local industry and they are heavily heavily subsidizing their electric car industry.

      Those low prices won't last once the American electric car industry is gone and it will take too much to build it back up.

      I can see bringing in cheap Chinese solar panels because we can do a lot with that electricity and it can offset The damage it can do to local industries if it's properly managed. But solar panels have a nice long lifespan whereas car is not so much especially these cheaper Chinese ones which are the only ones worth bothering to import (if I have to import something the costs as much or more as something built in America that's just silly).
      • by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @05:56PM (#64737592) Homepage

        If you care about the environment you're pushing for walkable cities and trains.

        People are unbelievably defeatist about the idea of installing EV charging infrastructure, and we're talking in a developed country that already has an extensive electrical grid. They're literally saying it's too expensive and too much effort to connect some equipment to the existing grid and putting some parking spaces in front of them. Now imagine trying to convince the same people they need to make all the infrastructure changes required to make the vast stretches of American suburbia walkable and implementing public transit that isn't just additional smelly, slow buses.

        Not being 100% behind the effort to electrify private transportation is truly a case of letting perfect become the enemy of good. I live in a neighborhood with an absolutely terrible walkability score and unless the real estate fairy comes down from the heavens and gives me a magical condo downtown for the same price I'm presently paying, there's no way I could ever afford the move. I did, however, snag a good deal on a Bolt late last year and now my trips don't involve a vehicle that's guzzling down dinosaur juice just so I can pick up some Chipotle for dinner.

        • The problem is fast chargers. Take a decent size truck stop, multiply by at least four, (forty minutes instead of ten to refuel) then take that number times Kw per unit and then you will see where the problem is.

          Charging at home is no problem. I have a spare 240 V 30 amp circuit that would do nicely, but not a full charge in 40 minutes.

          • I think of this as consumer protection more than environmental. Canada has unique issues to overcome that no other country besides maybe russia would understand.

            We have a cold climate. We have to travel long distances. Alot. Most of these cars do not do well AT ALL in the cold. Chinese cars have a history of being very bad reliability in the cold especially.

            Also all these so called environmental benefits of electricity completely disappear if you have to heat the interior of the car. Like we do for half the

            • by spitzak ( 4019 )

              An electric heat pump is vastly more efficient than using waste heat from internal combustion. Using electrical resistance is not so good but I have never heard of it being less efficient.

              • this is an interesting concept and it can feel a little counter intuitive so let me try my best to explain:

                Electrical resistance heating is basically 100% efficient. there are almost no losses if you just measure energy in vs energy out as heat. so far, so good.

                however now you are essentially "wasting" energy heating your car from its batteries that can no longer be put towards the mileage of the vehicle. and the batteries are also less efficient in cold temperatures. Meaning up to 50% less efficient drivin

                • by spitzak ( 4019 )

                  By that measure a heat pump is more than 100% efficient. More heat is pumped into the car than would be produced by converting the electric power to heat.

        • I live in a neighborhood with an absolutely terrible walkability score and unless the real estate fairy comes down from the heavens and gives me a magical condo downtown for the same price I'm presently paying, there's no way I could ever afford the move.

          Walkability isn't a magical feature from day one. It's something we create. America used to have walkable cities. (Fun fact, cars didn't always exist). But they were torn down to make spaces for parking lots.

          Contrast it to a place like Amsterdam - one of the world's most walkable cities. I invite you to go look at pictures of Amsterdam in the 1960s. There was no public transport, there were cars everywhere, every place without a building was a parking lot, you couldn't tell it apart from New Amsterdam --- I

      • "The Chinese have a long history of dumping product to destroy local industry"

        And then you mention solar panels where they did exactly the same thing.

        Then there is the rare earth industry where they also did the same thing.

        If you don't want to be totally beholden to Emperor Xi then the tariffs on Chinese imports need to be high enough to offset the value of forced labor and the lack of environmental laws as well as the targeted money from the central bank to the favored industries.

        • by HBI ( 10338492 )

          The very concept of tariffs applied to combat China's dumping of consumer goods pretty much sounds the death knell of globalism, and the efficacy of economic sanctions. I'm sure the Chinese care, but they don't care enough to change their policies. They have other markets.

          We're on the losing side of this equation. We need to do something different.

      • If you care about the environment you're pushing for walkable cities and trains.

        If you care about so many things, then walkable cities and trains. Also trams, buses and bikes. But especially trams which are uniquely awesome.

        It's really not just the environment. There is so much wrong with how North America does roads. They are expensive, dangerous, have terrible traffic AND bad for the environment.

      • I think Canada is smart to do this. The Chinese have a long history of dumping product to destroy local industry and they are heavily heavily subsidizing their electric car industry.

        Wouldn't Canada have to have a local industry related to manufacturing electric vehicles before that industry could be affected by such tactics? What industry is Canada protecting here?

    • What's the win? It's a lose all around.

      We have companies like Ford saying the essentially can't be bothered to try to compete because there is "insufficient demand," then at the same time we are putting tariffs on imported vehicles because they are in too much demand and unfairly taking jobs away from local manufacturing. All while we are trying to reduce greenhouse emissions to protect the climate...

      You can't make this stuff up...and it is a good example of how complex systems interact with each other.
  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @04:41PM (#64737296)

    that the Chinese will soon pay a pretty Yuan for a bottle of maple syrup.

  • What other country do we know that once engaged in genocide and slave labor? Would they be worthy of our $$$?

  • by presidenteloco ( 659168 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @05:33PM (#64737508)
    because the west slacked off on it seriously over the last decade or so, while China raced ahead.

    Even if the US and Canada manage to protect their own domestic market and force their own population to buy shitty overpriced EVs, the US (with the exception of Tesla) and Canada have already lost the rest of the world as a market for selling EVs. We've been outcompeted, because of of environmental denialism and oil-bathed economy and lobbying.

    This tariff move is the pathetic last gap of an economic loser, and I say that as a citizen of one of those countries.

    Canada's economy will no doubt now be punished severely by China's justified tit-for-tat retaliatory moves.
    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by schwit1 ( 797399 )

      It helps if you have slave labor and few environmental rules.

      • The Uyghurs? why would slave labor be so super productive? you'd think they'd slack off on the job. Also China's work camps were set up to combat terrorism: https://time.com/5638533/china... [time.com] After seeing Israel's response to Hamas terrorism, China's method is hands down the preferred and humanitarian method to combat terrorism.
      • It helps when your auto makers still make their money from selling product, rather than from interest on the loans to buy said product.

  • by FeelGood314 ( 2516288 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @07:11PM (#64737842)
    The major parties choose their leaders based on a vote by members of the party. The party members vote based on what they personally want, not on the electability of the leaders. Trudeau is leader of the Liberal party which historically has been a fairly centralist party. The party members though have moved fairly far to the left. Canada now has 3 fairly left wing parties, the liberal, the Greens and the NDP. The fourth party, the Conservatives, has been traditionally fairly fiscally conservative. However their policies, when they have coherent policies, would be similar to the Republican's in the USA. The conservatives have never voted for anything remotely supporting a free market in the last 4 years, actively criticize corporate profits, have monetary policies that resemble Turkey's (low interest rates when inflation is high) and have said they want to eliminate the independence of the bank of Canada. The conservatives were anti vaccine, anti mask, dog whistle anti immigrant and homophobic views. The conservatives will likely win a landslide victory in the next election and I hate to admit it but I will likely vote for them.
    • " Canada now has 3 fairly left wing parties,"

      LOL... this person is clearly not canadian if he thinks that the liberals are a "left wing" party, or even have many left leaning views. They are currently propping up landlords, corporate interests and big business. They bought and run an oil pipeline. They are bringing in tons of low skill foreign workers with the only reason being to depress wages for citizens and help business friends make more dividends. They said recently that their primary concern is to ke

  • Both the United States or Canada have greater emissions per capita than China. This is likely to make that problem worse.

    The objection is to China subsidizing production of low emission vehicles and exporting them to other countries. My bet would be most of those vehicles are being purchased instead of a new ICE vehicle rather than a new US/Canada EV. They are cheaper than an ICE vehicle to purchase and cheaper to operate.

    By contrast EV vehicles produced in North American are not price competitive with I

  • by CEC-P ( 10248912 ) on Monday August 26, 2024 @07:27PM (#64737878)
    That really doesn't even cover the cost of them exploding or China backdoor killswitching them all. That level of damage is in the billions.
  • So Canada wants to outlaw new ICE in 2035, but make all they can do to force people to not buy EV by imposing 100% duty?
  • or we will remotely disable your transportation infrastructure.
    Xi has shown that he is not above such moves.

    I for one might buy an EV for my next car - whenever that happens - but I would not ever buy any kind of car made in China.

    Where this gets interesting is cars like Volvo (which makes a couple of EVs) but is owned by Geely: a Chinese company.

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