Electric vehicles: Canada to move to mandate in 2026

OTTAWA –

One-fifth of passenger cars, SUVs and trucks sold in Canada by 2026 will have to run on electricity under new regulations proposed Wednesday by Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.

By 2030, the mandate will reach 60 percent of all sales and by 2035, all passenger vehicles sold in Canada must be electric.

Manufacturers or importers who fail to meet sales targets may face penalties under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Canada still has a long way to go to get closer to the first target in 2025.

In the first six months of this year, sales of electric vehicles, including all-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, accounted for just 7.2 percent of new car registrations. For the entire year 2021, the proportion was 5.2%.

According to the draft regulation, which will be formally published on December 30, the government proposes to monitor sales by providing credits for the sale of vehicles.

All-electric cars and trucks would be worth more credit than plug-in hybrid versions, although the government admits plug-in hybrids are likely to be in demand in rural and northern areas.

The mandate fulfills the 2021 Liberal election promise. It is the first major set of rules to come out of a plan to reduce emissions published by the government in April.

The plan is Canada’s broad roadmap for achieving its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors to below 40-45 percent of 2005 levels by 2030.

Passenger vehicles account for about half of all road transport emissions and about one-tenth of all Canadian emissions across all sectors.

Before Wednesday’s move, Canada already had targets for electric vehicle sales. But they were not enforceable, and the government was unsuccessful in forcing car companies to increase the number of electric vehicles available for sale.

The new targets will be across the country, although some provinces are already ahead of others.

Quebec and British Columbia already have provincial sales mandates. An analysis released last week by the Canadian Climate Institute concluded that the mandates helped both provinces move ahead of the rest of the country in the use of electric vehicles.

Anna Kanduth, a senior research associate at the institute, said the global supply of zero-emission vehicles is still limited, although it is growing rapidly.

“Automakers overwhelmingly favor jurisdictions with some form of sales mandate,” he wrote, adding that places with mandates have much higher zero-emission vehicle adoption rates and more model options.

BC is the leader in electric vehicle sales, accounting for nearly 15% of all new vehicles registered between January and June. Quebec is in second place, with 11.4 percent of enrollments.

There is a sharp drop in third-place Ontario, where only 5.5 per cent of new registrations are for electric vehicles. The number is below four percent in all other territories.

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on December 21, 2022.