With promised stringent GHG emissions standards still in the works, only Quebec and B.C. will be regulating ZEV sales in the country

The government of Canada has announced the start of the process to officially repeal the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard (EVAS). The regulation mandated all new passenger vehicle sales in Canada be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2035. 

Posted to the Canada Gazette on Friday, the proposal for amendment has a 75-day public comment period. 

What wasn’t announced, however, was a replacement to promote ZEV uptake in the country. 

No federal ZEV sales regulations

In February, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the government would repeal EVAS and replace it with a new greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standard for new vehicle sales. Carney had said the goal of the new GHG-based regulations would target 75 per cent ZEV sales by 2035 and 90 per cent ZEV sales by 2040. 

Repealing EVAS now means, for an indeterminate amount of time, the federal government will be without regulations on the sale of ZEVs. 

When contacted for comment, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada said the government will be launching a new round of consultations on the proposed GHG emissions standard. This time, the talks will be with the auto industry and environmental groups for input. 

The spokesperson added that the existing Passenger Automobile and Light Truck Greenhouse Gas Emission Regulations, first registered in 2010 and updated periodically, remains in place. That standard mirrors those of the U.S.

Provincial mandates

Quebec and British Columbia are the only two provinces to have their own ZEV sales standards, but both provinces have scaled back their initial targets.

In April, B.C. dropped its Zero-Emission Vehicles Act (ZEVA) mandate from 100 per cent ZEV sales by 2035 to 75 per cent. 

Quebec did the same with its Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) standard in June, dropping its expectations of ZEV sales to 80 per cent by 2035.

Automakers relieved

The move by the federal government to officially abandon EVAS will appease automakers, who had voiced concerns about rigid, mandated sales targets for electric vehicles. 

“GHG standards and tailpipe emissions, on the face of it, are a technology-neutral approach,” said Lucas Malinowski in an interview with Electric Autonomy. He is the CEO of Global Automakers of Canada, which represents more than 26 vehicle brands in the country.

“Whereas EVAS was ostensibly a supply-side policy, but actually the obligation was on the demand side. It wasn’t just that automakers had to supply vehicles, they had to sell those vehicles without commensurate demand-side policy to remove the barriers to EV adoption and get more Canadians to make the switch to electrification.”

Scott MacKenzie, director of corporate strategy, planning and external affairs for Toyota Canada, said earlier this year he prefers a more organic method of promoting ZEV sales, which is still not without challenges.

“We think it’s the right decision,” he said, referring to the repealing of EVAS. “But [GHG regulations are] still very challenging and very aggressive in terms of what their targets are, and they require increasing sales of battery-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and hybrids in order to comply going forward.”

The curve is important

MacKenzie notes that while the end expectations are already public, it’s what comes in-between that automakers need to be clear on, to help plan product years in advance.

“We know the starting point and we know the end point … but we don’t know what the curve or the slope looks [like] and that’s important,” he said.

“That means a lot to an OEM, because technology adoption … tends to be a flatter curve that increases gradually over time. We haven’t seen what the model is going to be yet.”

Malinowski has a similar view on the upcoming standards. While he’s not concerned about a lack of new regulations in the short term, he also realizes that waiting too long could play havoc with automakers’ future planning. 

“The challenge becomes if this ball goes too far down the road, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a situation where you may need to regulate retroactively to get yourself on the curve that the government wants to achieve for its ambitions up to 2035,” he said. 

“That’s when it becomes quite difficult because you’d be regulating retroactively or potentially creating an incredibly aggressive curve or trajectory to get you up to that 2035 target.”

Waning patience

That patience in waiting for a GHG emissions standard is not shared outside the automotive manufacturing industry.

Adam Thorn, director of clean growth at the Pembina Institute, is blunt about how the dearth of ZEV mandates will affect the direction of electrification in the country.

“It’s difficult to see how the Prime Minister expects to meet his own objective without a policy to drive the transition,” said Thorn in a statement.

“This decision also represents a failure of an early test of the government’s commitment to electrification. … If electrification is expected to deliver more affordable energy to Canadians and reduce emissions, transportation policy needs to actively drive EV adoption.  

“Canada can’t claim to support electrification while repealing policies needed to deliver it.”

A statement by Electric Mobility Canada (EMC) also has a strong rebuke for the federal government. 

“Eliminating the regulation without replacing it now with new and predictable regulation actually increases the regulatory uncertainty and increases investment risk for the industry. 

“This only adds to all the uncertainty that the EV industry has had to deal with in the past few years.”