2035 EV Goals - Canada and the USA impacted

In British Columbia and Quebec, the policies are even more stringent than Ottawa’s. Quebec, for example, recently announced it would ban the sale of used gas engines by 2035 as well. International policy also has some impact on Canada, as EU countries and U.S. states bring their own mandates, impacting vehicle supply.

Although 2035 is more than a decade away, industry has had to work toward the incremental goals set by Ottawa: 20 percent of all new light-duty vehicle sales should be zero-emissions by 2026, and 60 percent by 2030. Most personal vehicles, like cars, SUVs, and light pickup trucks, fall into the light-duty vehicle category.

Other concerns around EVs include battery waste, child labour in the supply chain, and Chinese oversupply in the market.

Charging Infrastructure Availability, Cost

“To win consumers in the mass market, you have to make it extremely convenient for them,“ said Brian Kingston, head of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, at a June 25 press conference on Parliament Hill. He and other industry leaders gave an update on the ”countdown to 2035.”

The number of charging stations across Canada has increased about 45 percent annually over the past decade, and 72 percent last year, said Natural Resources Canada in an email to The Epoch Times.

Canada currently has about 29,000 EV charging ports located at about 11,600 stations, with most of them in Ontario and Quebec. Canada may need about 40,000 additional ports built each year, up to a total of 447,000 by 2035, according to a report commissioned by Natural Resources Canada and published in February. 

Most of the ports currently available in Canada are level 2 chargers, which provide a range of about 35 kilometres per hour of charging. It’s not like making a quick stop at the gas station—level 2 charging is often called “destination” charging, as you may top up your charge while parked for an outing.

For example, Haute Goat farm and restaurant near Port Hope, Ont., hosts level 2 ports. It’s the kind of place you might spend a couple of hours while your car is plugged in. This can be a boon to businesses such as this one, which lies outside the main clusters of charging stations in southern Ontario.

The business paid for the chargers using a federal tourism recovery grant, said owner Debbie Nightingale in an email. She charges about 15 to 20 cars per week at the farm.

Ivy, a charging network company that runs many of the sites in northern Ontario, says a level 2 charger costs up to $2.50 per hour to use, amounting to about $2.50 for 35 kilometres worth of charging. A gas-powered vehicle with average fuel efficiency would cost about $5 for the same distance, at a price of $1.60 per litre.

Of course, it’s not just fuel price that consumers look at, but also the cost of the vehicle and its maintenance. A University of British Columbia study published in February looked at fuel cost savings, cost of vehicles, and government incentives for buying EVs. The study found that, all those factors considered, the average EV driver does not break even. It’s easiest to break even in Quebec, where subsidies are relatively high and electricity is relatively cheap, the study found. 

A level 3, or “DC fast” charger, costs about $15–$20 per hour, but can charge from empty to about 80 percent in roughly 30 minutes. Canada-wide there are just under 5,300 of these ports publicly available. The country will need some 40,000 more of them by 2035, according to the federally commissioned February report.

How Convenient Is Current Charging Infrastructure?

On a Natural Resources Canada map showing the locations of all current chargers, each represented by a green dot, the southern regions of Canada look fairly well covered in green. And even into the north, chargers are available at regular intervals. But how convenient they are depends on a driver’s needs.

A look at a couple of scenarios will help illustrate the current convenience level of charging infrastructure.

The first scenario is a city driver in the Greater Toronto Area. In much of the GTA, you can find a DC fast charger within a 30 kilometre radius. 

An electric vehicle has a range of 300–500 kilometres, so assuming you can get a full charge at home, there’s not too much concern about running out of battery in the city. However, many can’t get a full charge at home. 

People living in downtown Toronto are worried about how they'll get chargers into their condos, Mr. Reuss said.

“Consumers shouldn’t have to worry about that,” he said. 

Some developers are putting big money behind charging infrastructure in new builds. For example, Amexon Development Corporation is spending $10 million on 1,500 charging ports at its new Residences at Central Park condominium complex in Toronto, a spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email. 

Not all downtown residences, however, will have such access to charging. And the concerns about charging infrastructure grow when you get outside Canada’s big cities, Mr. Reuss said.

Cold weather also impacts range. EVs lose about 30 percent of their range in freezing temperatures, according to a study published in January by Recurrent, a Seattle-based tech company focused on EV research.

“We have winters with minus 40. We have average driving distances in a lot of provinces that are above 500, 600 kilometres. We need to also solve for those issues,” Mr. Reuss said.

The issue of long distances brings us to our second scenario.

Let’s say you’re taking a road trip along the Trans-Canada Highway through northern Ontario to head out West. You might stop at one of five DC fast stations in Sudbury. The next chance to recharge would be in Espanola, about 70 kilometres away. Espanola has a Tesla Supercharger; these chargers are faster than other DC fast ports, recharging up to 270 kilometres in 15 minutes, according to the Tesla website.  

The ideal, however, is to have one fast-charger for every 65 kilometres on all highways, says the February report commissioned by Natural Resources Canada.

If you’re taking another route through Northern Ontario, such as the King’s Highway 11, you may have to make destination stops for longer charging times at level 2 chargers. For example, if you stop at the DC fast station in Temiskaming Shores, the next fast charger you'll hit is about 330 kilometres away in Kapuskasing. In between are two level 2 chargers, one at a motel in Cochrane—if you’re ready to spend the night charging.

Ford shut down its Oakville, Ont., plant this spring to retool for EV production. But it recently announced it would instead retool to produce gas-powered F-Series Super Duty pickup trucks, which are in high demand.

Nonetheless, it’s keeping its options open. The revamped plant will be ready for “future multi-energy technology,” the company said in a July 18 news release.

The industry is in the tough position of balancing what’s going to sell now, and what is mandated for the future, Mr. Adams said. “If the consumer demand isn’t there or if consumers don’t have the confidence at this point to make the switch, that’s a challenge.”

Canada’s EV Market

About 11 percent of new vehicles registrations in the first quarter of 2024 were zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), according to Statistics Canada. In the first quarter of 2023, that number was about 8 percent. Transport Canada considers battery-electric, plug-in hybrid electric, and fuel cell electric vehicles to be ZEVs, referring to vehicles that have the potential to produce no tailpipe emissions.

Another major cost associated with EVs is upgrading the electrical grid. Mr. Kingston of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association discussed cost projections.

Adapting the Power Grid

Mr. Kingston cited a 2019 study by the Boston Consulting Group which estimated that utilities will have to spend between US$1,700 and $5,800 per EV for grid upgrades through 2030.

“In Ontario alone, decarbonizing the electricity system will cost between $375 billion and $425 billion,” he said. That is the estimate given by the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) in its December 2022 “Pathways to Decarbonization” report. 

The IESO says in its 2024 Annual Planning Outlook, that increased electricity demand from EVs, as well as the electrification of home heating and growing energy demand in the agricultural sector, will cause winter demand peaks to reach the same level as summer peaks by 2030.

Demand will start outstripping supply by about 2029, IESO said. 

The IESO has expressed both hope for addressing this shortfall and concerns that it won’t be possible.

It says an increase in renewable energy, as well as greater energy efficiency measures, could close the gap between supply and demand. But in a March 15 letter to Environment and Climate Change Canada regarding clean electricity regulations, it said it’s hard to plan ahead with the uncertainties of the renewable industry in Ontario.

“The resource shortfall could not be resolved through the addition of incremental non-emitting resources as there was insufficient time to plan, acquire and build the new generation and transmission infrastructure necessary to replace the natural gas generation,” the IESO letter said.

Natural Resources Canada told The Epoch Times that reports it has commissioned indicate it is possible for the grid to keep up. It cited the most recent of these reports, published in February.

The fragility of Canada’s power grids has been a matter of concern amid extreme weather events. The number of grid alerts in Alberta, for example, has increased in recent years. The Alberta Electric System Operator issued just four provincial alerts between 2017 and 2020. Between 2021 and January 2024, it issued 17. 

Additional Concerns

Other concerns around electric vehicles have included methods by which EV battery waste will be handled, child labour in the production chain, and China’s role in the industry.

Ottawa began a 30-day consultation on July 2 regarding  the practices of China’s EV producers.

UNICEF has reported regularly on child labour used for mining EV battery materials, such as cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.