Motor Mouth: Canada moves to ban new combustion-engine cars by 2035

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To the surprise of no one, the federal government has decided that Canada will join the league of nations announcing that they will ban the sales of gasoline-fueled cars. In our case, the phase-out date will occur in 2035, a timeline that is pretty much in keeping with the norm amongst environmentally-concerned nations. Yes, Norway is looking at 2025 (electric vehicles there, thanks to generous incentivization, currently account for about 60 per cent of sales) and England’s target is 2030 (good luck with that, Boris!) but the consensus around the globe seems to be 2035.

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How they will attain that goal — an advancement of five years from their previous announcement — is unclear. In fact, very few details were provided other than minister of transport Omar Alghabra’s contention that the federal government will be “expanding and strengthening” its incentive program to reach its targets.

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Alghabra says that more than $600 million has been already spent to get 90,000 Canadians into zero-emissions vehicles. For a little context, the Canadian market for cars and light duty trucks is somewhere around 1.8 million units. Plainly, a broader program is needed if the 2035 goals are to be reached.

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What might an expanded federal EV incentive program look like?

Currently, to qualify for the federal $5,000 incentive, the base trim of any EV must start below $45,000. That allows more expensive trims — Canadians tend to buy more luxury trims of cars, even if the cars we buy are generally smaller and less expensive — to qualify, but manufacturers have to at least pretend to sell one version below the 45-grand mark. That price point was chosen to prevent monies going to affluent consumers shopping Tesla, Porsche, and other luxury EVs.

Unfortunately, the only vehicles that qualify are essentially compact-sized cars, a segment that is otherwise in retreat. More important to our zero-emissions future is getting the 75 or 80 per cent of Canadians who shop trucks and SUVs to switch to battery power. Such a move to open up subsidization to larger — and more expensive vehicles — is, according to sources, already being discussed.

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It would hardly be surprising, if for no other reason than the Liberals awarded Ford of Canada $295 million last year to convert its Oakville plant to production of electric vehicles. To then have the company’s signature BEV — the much-ballyhooed-but-$68,000 F-150 Lightning — not promoted through its incentive program would seem politically inept. Indeed, as Motor Mouth speculated when the Oakville plan was announced , it’s likely that Prime Minister Trudeau et al informed Ford of such a revision being forthcoming before the automaker would commit to the plant refurbish.

Efficient no more

While a move to incentivize SUVs and pickups would seem to make sense, it does does come with its drawbacks. Promoting trucks — again, the vehicles most popular with Canadians — incentivizes automakers to be as profligate as possible when it comes to lithium, cobalt, and all the other minerals and metals that go into a electric vehicle’s battery. GMC’s Hummer will have a 200-kilowatt-hour battery — double that of the largest Tesla sedan — and Ford’s Lightning, though not confirmed, could boast as much as 180 kWh . Ditto Rivian’s RT1.

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On average, in fact, one can safely assume that pickups will need something in the neighbourhood of double the size of battery of the typical small- to medium-sized sedans and hatchbacks currently being subsidized. As much as that expansion of eligible vehicles might speed up the adoption of EVs, it does not seem a sensible conservation policy. And, if the government were to institute a battery-size qualifier in its expansion of the incentive program — to prevent subsidization of the luxury sedans, if they were to raise the price threshold — it still promotes the production of behemoth-batteried pickups.

Price parity out the window?

Protagonists of our switch to battery power have long contended that our current subsidization will eventually end , with most asserting that, with economies of scale, EVs will become cost-competitive with ICE-powered cars. Promoting pickups with ginormous batteries might make that assumption problematic.

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As Motor Mouth has discussed previously, the International Energy Agency (IEA) recently estimated that a complete switchover to battery power would require some 40 times as much lithium as we consume today . And that’s based, I seem to remember, on an average battery capacity of 50 kWh, perfectly feasible for a lightweight sedan, but barely enough to get a Hummer EV around the block.

Such demand would seem to stretch our ability to mine and produce all those aforementioned minerals and metals. One does not need to be Milton Friedman to understand that such a dramatic increase in demand is going to put significant price pressure of the price of raw materials.

Indeed, according to mining-journal.com , the price of lithium has almost doubled since the beginning of the year. That means the very incentives that would promote increased demand could also hinder the price parity that would allow the removal of subsidies. Nor have we begun to address the various other issues — recycling, the humanistic price of production, etc. — that increased demand for raw materials will engender.

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The price of missing deadlines

The one big question no one is asking with all these deadline for the elimination of ICE-powered cars is what will happen should EVs fail to significantly penetrate the market by 2035. It is one thing to frustrate a few recidivist hangers-on, should they fail to convert to ZEVs by the proposed cut-off date; it’s quite another if, come January 1, 2035, a significant proportion of Canadians still have no intention of purchasing an EV.

The very incentives that would promote increased EV demand could also hinder the price parity that would allow the removal of subsidies

In other words, if BEVs have 90 per cent of the market by 2035, it will be comparatively easy to say “tough noogies” to the remaining hold-outs. If by the end of 2034, 50 per cent of consumers still have no intention of converting, the government — at least, no sane government —will have to, as California has done so many times, push back its deadlines.

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The problem then becomes that the gas engines still being produced will be not particularly efficient. Audi’s recent announcement of its intention to go fully battery-electric also came with a promise it will stop developing and improving its gas-powered internal combustion engines beginning 2026. Should that 2035 timeline have to be pushed back, that would mean that the luxury automaker would be flogging ten-year-old engine designs. Ditto for Volvo and, I suspect, all the other automakers who have committed to phasing out ICE powertrains by 2035.

Synthetic gas to the rescue?

The problem then becomes how to reduce the production of CO2 in engines that will not be further developed. The answer, if delays in deadlines were required, would seem to be the synthetic gas that companies like Porsche are pioneering .

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Basically using zero-emission carbon capture of atmospheric CO2 to produce synthetic hydrocarbons, it would expand the lifespan of then-aging gasoline powertrains by allowing them to be net-zero. It won’t, as we described in a previous Motor Mouth be cheap, but it would be sustainable. Governments, however, would have to forgo the normally exorbitant gas taxes to make such a program feasible.

The question then becomes “should Canada become a leader in the production of synthetic gas as a hedge for our ZEV ambitions?” Various levels of government have wisely promoted Canada as a potential leader in battery development and production . A truly comprehensive environmental program might be well-advised to have a synth-gas program as a backstop. At worst, it would make all the ICE-powered cars still on the road after 2035 — the average new 2034 gas-powered car could last up to 15 years — as clean as their battery-powered replacements.