[UI_at_80x24]

Canada should re-enact the AutoPact [0] (tldr: I don't see this in the wiki article, but the real benefit was; for every 3 cars sold in Canada, 1 had to be 'made' in Canada). This was ruled as unfair under NAFTA and thus terminated. It also had the effect of incredible auto-industry cutbacks.

BUT, with a new contender (China); we could re-enact it, rebuild our diminished blue-collar manufacturing base; and hasten the rollout of EV vehicles. Which is the real objective here.

IMHO, that would be a solid win for everybody.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_A...

[giarc]

But are Chinese EVs attractive to consumers if they are built in Canada with union wages? At that point people will just keep buying Toyotas/Hondas that are also built in Canada.

[tzs]

I'd expect quite a few consumers would still want them. Canada has cheap electricity and expensive gasoline. For those who don't live in some part of Canada so cold that the efficiency of an EV drops massively due to heating an EV can save quite a bit on energy costs.

Around 65-75% of Canadians live in parts of Canada that have winter temperatures similar to those of Norway's major cities and EVs perform fine in Norway so will probably also be fine in Canada.

The US and Japanese and Korean car companies are putting most of their EV effort, at least in the US and Canada, into the more expensive models. They don't have much that is the EV equivalent of a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic for non-SUVs, or the equivalent of a RAV4 or CR-V for EVs.

Honda for example only has the Prologue, which is built on top of GM's Equinox EV platform and starts at about $15k more than an Equinox EV.

The Chinese EV companies seem more willing to address that segment. Even if they have to pay union wages to build them there will be demand because it will still be cheaper than the EVs that are aimed at a more upscale market the other companies are mostly making.

[oaiey]

Or you just setup lower price limits for cars like Europe did with China. So that state support is not affecting the market. Because guess what: producing a car in far far away land and then ship it around the world and pay some 10% tariff is also not that cheap.

[metalman]

the current deal is for 45000 cars, which they think will be all sold in 90 days or less, then there is mention of BYD building a plant in Canada, with whatever balance of imports and domestic production gets agreed on, so there is room and time for something like Autopact with China

Nova Scotia here, off grid, realy want to build a new bigger solar pv set up with sodium batteries, and design for whole house, shop, and car charging. Time for that is looking like now!

[waveforms]

The time to negotiate that would have been before this announcement. Carney has doomed Canada's auto industry because he is negotiating with his emotions.

[icegreentea2]

The deal allows up to 70,000 cars a year by 2030 to be imported at the reduced tariff. Canadians buy 1.5-2 million cars per year, and roughly a quarter million EVs per year.

If this deal as reported somehow manages to doom the Canadian auto industry, then our auto industry was probably somehow doomed anyways.

[yibg]

I don’t see how. Chinese manufacturers aren’t going to setup multi billion dollar plants without some market presence, that comes after.

Letting in some small amount of Chinese EVs for so they can test the waters seems sensible all around. If they are popular then negotiate on local manufacturing to allow a larger market share.