I hope the gov (fed, prov, muni) are prepared to invest big time in infrastructure.
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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If the Conservatives win the next election they'll cancel all positive climate action because that's what the Republicans would do.
As much as I prefer the market-based bottom-up solutions provided by carbon tax, the advantage of green infrastructure is that it's sticky.
The conservatives can destroy the carbon tax with the stroke of a pen. They won't destroy the wind generators and the charging stations that have already been fully implemented.
They can officially do it. However the out of power liberals can just announce next time they get in power they will just restore the laws to where they were. This might allow ICEs to exist until 2038 or sometime (I don't know what Canada's election cycles are so I picked a random year), but eventually the ban will come down hard and the liberals won't give the industry any time to adjust - they will just ban all sales of ICEs effective when the law is signed. As such all the future changes in the law does is specify when the last ICE assembly plant shuts down - auto makers will still plan on all new vehicles being EVs (either only or as a popular option), then they keep producing ICEs until the law stops it, but they are ready for the day.
The smart thing for auto makers to do is to instead look for the limits and find a compromise. ICEs do have some advantages over EVs that are compelling in specific things (the energy in a liter of fuel is a big deal). Focus the conservatives on adding an exception for a few remote or long distance travel situations and they can get an exception the liberals won't repeal.
Canadian federal election cycles are 4 years, but the PM can call them sooner.
Personally, I think the goal should be finding agreement amongst all political parties now on reduction/elimination targets.
I think the goal should be finding agreement amongst all political parties now
You won't get that. The right-wing in Canada, by virtue of following the path trodden by the US, has made compromise a dirty word.
Case in point: carbon taxes were the right-wing solution: it put the cost on the demand side, didn't require industry to do anything or be regulated, it just put a mild thumb on the demand side of the equation, and even returned revenue to the government which could be used for refunds or tax breaks. The left-wing solution would have been nationalization and regulation, but the Conservatives screamed about that and how we needed a market-based solution instead.
But because the Liberals did that same market-based solution, the Conservatives have to rail against it because...blue team good common sense socialism far left woke whaaaaargarbl.
Put it this way: the Liberals could go full US Second Amendment, cancel gun registration and tracking and give everyone over 18 a coupon for a free handgun and the Conservatives would still scream, and their base would do the same. This isn't new, and it's because tribalism is stronger than ideology, and all you need to do to get someone to agree with a "red team" idea is somehow convince them that it's a blue team idea.
This is what makes the political Right so infuriating: they could pipe the fuck down and agree to present a unified front on things that would make everything better, but they won't because they'd rather score cheap political points, instead.
Wow, you've given me a lot to think about, and I appreciate you sharing your insights.
I agree with your comments about the political Right, and that tribalism is generally stronger than critical thinking in most people (and - alarmingly - this trend appears to be increasing).
It isn't increasing per se, it's just being more ruthlessly exploited.
We've come out of a weird 50-70 period in history where the normal political consensus was...not normal...and all sides of the political quadrangle have been trying to figure out where they stand, economically and politically. There's actually been a lot more favour-trading and ideological drift as liberals, conservatives, anarchists and authoritarians all tried to figure out where they were on the map. What we've seen since the fall of the USSR and the neoliberal failure to address the 2008 financial crisis is just a kind of regression to the mean, where our "tribes" felt more secure staking out territory and establishing political shibboleths.
But yeah, the Right has been particularly unpleasant about it. In their defense, this is because the early-90s "triangulation" movement on the Left kind of cut the Right off at the knees--you could be a big-business douchebag and not care about what people smoked or slept with--and forced the powerbrokers on the Right, if they wanted to survive, to stake out illiberalism and nationalism as their safe space.
finding agreement amongst all political parties
You're gonna love the next minority government. It'll either be short or progressive.
I hope the gov (fed, prov, muni) are prepared to invest big time in infrastructure.
That needs to be on the mandate anyway.
Sounds good to me but I do worry that new vehicles will be even more expensive than they are now and the used car market will go the way of the current housing market.
That’s a good point. I think one solution is smaller cars. For the past two decades, we’ve bought way more car than we need—everyone has huge SUVs and pick up trucks, despite the fact that families are smaller than ever and fewer people carpool than in the past. That’s because big cars are subsidized with relaxed regulations.
The other solution is fewer cars. We’ll always need cars, but there’s lots of low hanging fruit to improve our mediocre public transportation and lack of mixed zoning.
People are too stupid to buy a smaller car. Media tells them that bigger = safety and luxury, and that's all they need to know. Just look at how many people scream "the grid isn't ready", "they don't work in the cold", and "the batteries cause slavery" about EVs because they heard it in a tik tok once.
Fewer car is the ideal solution but the people who will loose their cars are the ones with the least lifestyle choices, they don't commute by choice. There will never be a lack of rich pricks to buy white Audi/BMW/Merc suvs.
People are too stupid to buy a smaller car.
Maybe in North America. Small cars are fine in Europe...
You might be right, but it would be a good motivator to have people pay the true cost of big heavy cars — including the negative externalities to health, safety, road wear, parking, and pollution. Drivers don't currently pay those costs, which means we essentially subsidize big heavy cars now. If we stopped doing that, Canadians would act more like consumers in the rest of the world.
Also, strong agree on fewer cars being the ideal solution. In fact, fewer cars is a mathematical necessity. We can't electrify ourselves out of terrible land use, e.g. the oceans of parking lots, crumbling roads, and inefficient highways that contribute to carbon emissions and environmental degradation.
the negative externalities to health, safety,
see: Car Insurance Costs
road wear,
you're thinking a Road Tax like the UK? That's coming; but I'll only vote on it if it pays MoT AND MoT takes over a completely-public mass-transit
parking,
User-fees
and pollution.
E car; but I can get behind a levy on car insurance through our publicly-managed consolidated regional single-base-insurer, for Internal Combustion Engine cars.
Drivers don’t currently pay those costs,
It seems the only thing missing is the road tax; and that's just because they're in love with their volatile user fees for transit despite the near-collapse of CEO bonuses during the pandemic.
Car insurance only covers a small number of externalities. It does not cover tire particle pollution (tires are the number one source of microplastics in the world), air exhaust pollution, noise pollution, etc etc. Even if they never got into accidents, cars would remain one of the most hazardous things to our health. Cars are also the number one killer of children, by far, and insurance doesn’t bring them back to life.
Agreed that a road tax is a good start. But a road tax wouldn’t cover the fact that bigger cars cause MUCH more of all these harms than smaller cars, so externalities remain.
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Strangely enough china's cheap-ass cars are coming to the rescue. Since they're available. They're making the dodges and Lincolns consider smart-car-sized bare conveyances.
I'll buy they for c$12k
I don't trust Chinese quality control on lithium ion battery packs. I don't trust Tesla either, but that's besides the point.
At least the are better diy ev options then there were 10 years ago.
We don't have to buy them.
Their price point will push the expected price down for everyone.
Both housing and electric vehicles can be mass produced if the political majorities and bureaucracy are there.
Resources, that is raw materials, skilled workforce, construction planning and coordination, need to acquired. Among the requirememts for faster production is the realisation that luxurios amenities such as child-height radiator grills or 'unique' buildings that cannot create any shade are hindering cheap, that is accessible, mass production of electric vehicles and housing.
The 'stuff required' (political, infrastructure, bureaucracy, etc.) is unfortunately at odds with unrestrained capitalism. While it would be lovely to have everyone deal with a modest car and a modest house, companies will do everything they can to lure customers to a more luxurious offering; and the customers will work themselves into an early grave to be able to afford it.
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Make sure to buy a brand new ICE vehicle in 2033 because it will be worth a fortune on the used car market around 2040 😜
Maybe, maybe not. People follow the path of least resistance.
Right now, electric cars are a pain because there aren't DC fast charges everywhere. They're great for the daily commute because you can charge them at home, but they're a bit annoying when you want to do a road trip.
What happens when adoption of electric cars goes up? We'll see more charging stations, and fewer gas pumps. When gas pumps are as rare as DC fast chargers are, who is going to want the annoyance of a gas car? You'll only be able to sell to hobbyists who don't mind driving 30 min to a gas station. And will they really want whichever car you're driving?
What’s the definition of a “car” here? Do pickups and vans count?
I bet some set of those will be excluded and if that’s the case this will have a side effect of driving further adoption in those larger vehicles.
too little too late, as usual
So get fucked if you are poor as per usual
Is this feasible? Will the gov't take on the cost of building and maintaining sufficient charging stations? Will the price of new EV cars become more affordable? How will the auto industry feel (i.e., lobby) about EVs being the only new cars they can sell? Will auto-associated industries (like repair garages) transition smoothly from ICE to electric vehicles? I imagine the secondary market for ICE cars will explode around 2035. After seeing what's happened with the much much easier to implement carbon tax, I'm skeptical of this highly ambitious plan working. Increasing rebates for EV bikes seems like a better place to start. There might be more of this "sounds great but how's it going to happen?" legislation to come as Trudeau tries to hold onto leadership of the Liberal party. I think protecting the environment is really important. Perhaps too important to leave to politicians versus scientists
Perhaps too important to leave to politicians versus scientists
The scientists who constantly publish papers saying we're all going to die if we don't do something drastic immediately? You think they're going to have a problem with this?
I obviously don't think climate scientists will have a problem with the intent behind this, nor do I.
My only concern is investing (money, time, attention) in initiatives that don't have a good chance to succeed. Implementation scientists and policy experts would also be involved under what I was proposing. Others in this post seem to think this plan is more likely to succeed than me - and I'm not an expert, so maybe I'm wrong - and I hope I am
The problem is that the correct way to do this that lets the economy itself find the most efficient and effective way to eliminate emissions? That's carbon pricing. No need for the government to pick winners and losers, just make everybody pay for the emissions and then businesses and individuals will invest in green solutions because nobody likes wasting money.
And despite that being the economics-oriented market-based, scientific, conservative solution, the "Conservatives" freaking hate it.
And they can destroy it with the stroke of a pen.
So the Liberals need to find solutions that are sticky. Things that can't be destroyed with a pen. Things like charging infrastructure, and insulation, and green power. Things made of concrete and wires.
Interesting points!
Yes
Sure it is feasible - they have 11 years to build it..
Gas stations are built all the time, and they get the pumps updated and changed all the time. Now everyone in the business is on notice to factor this into their plan. With gas sales dropping off over time that changes how/when you update equipment plenty of money to make today, but you invest less for the future knowing that if your gas pump breaks after 2030 you are likely to just scrap it. The market for the other things gas stations sell still exists (cigarettes have been clearly dieing for decades - something they have experience in managing) Some will install EV chargers - something they now have more confidence in doing.
Auto manufactures already is aware of this, laws just encourage them to work on plans, and 11 years is plenty of time - almost all vehicles get major design changes more often than that.
Some mechanics will hang on to "buggy whips", but most will see and adjust when forced. Those that can't - they need to get out of the industry - the world has too many ludites holding us back already.
The secondary market for ICEs will explode for a bit, but by 2040 people will start feeling pain from the lack of gas pumps. Then the only people interested in an ICE will be those who really can't get by with an EV, by 2045 they will be special ordering fuel at high costs.
You raise some excellent points! And thank you for your thoughtful response!
I hope industry will be as forward-thinking as you believe they will be, even if we have a federal Conservative majority 2 years from now.
IF you see my post elsewhere I laid out a simple trick the liberals can use to ensure the conservative response won't change much..
11 years is a long time for some things, and too late for other things. It's a bold statement about a goal line I expect to shift by constant small movements by this party as reality doesn't match their enthusiasm, and broad leaps by another party when they get a chance.
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I'm on board for this legislation but I also think these are all very valid points.
They couldn't have made the mandate hybrid cars? They had to go to 100% electric?
The amount of infrastructure required for this is fucking impossible to do within 10 years. Anyone saying "they build gas stations all the time" doesn't seem to understand that a gas station consists of a few tanks and a few pumps and nothing else. For electric on this scale, they have to run new electric lines, build many more power plants/upgrade existing plants, create new power stations, and they had better also standardize EV chargers real fast.
Our power grid already blacks out in the summer because of everyone's air conditioning, I don't think having everyone plugging a car into it will do a lot of good in that regard.
Oil and gas sucks but it also contributes something like $105 billion dollars to the countries GDP per year, and with the current economic problems I don't know if this was the best time to do this. This is particularly going to fuck up Alberta/Newfoundland and Labrador as their GDP is like 20% oil and gas alone.
If China or the US did this, then it might be worth it considering the relativity of carbon emissions, but here, all this is going to to is completely fuck anyone who isn't already rich and/or in a city.
None of the big carbon emission players of the world are going to follow this example, it's not going to do anything to save the environment on a global scale, and its going to cost us endless amounts of money.
Lololol good luck with that. Every country is going to back pedal this shit. PHEV is going to be the short term solution. People don't want to spend more on cars that have to charge.
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