CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster, recently reported that the Canadian government will release final regulations mandating that all new passenger cars sold in Canada by 2035 must be zero-emission vehicles.

According to the CBC report:

Automakers are set to get a jolt Tuesday when Ottawa unveils its promised electric vehicle regulations.

CBC News has learned that Ottawa will release final regulations it says will ensure that all new passenger cars sold in Canada by 2035 are zero-emission vehicles, a senior government source said.

The source — who was not authorized to speak publicly — said the new regulations are meant to ensure that automakers produce enough affordable zero-emissions vehicles to meet the demand.

 

The regulations are to be called the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard (EVAS).

The regulations are meant to ensure that automakers produce enough affordable electric vehicles to meet the demand?! What a crock! That is beyond preposterous! The demand for electric vehicles is lagging far behind what “experts” predicted-- and what our elite leaders wish to see. In a free market, automakers would always produce enough vehicles to meet demand, to maximize revenue.

The EVAS is a tool of a command economy, designed to force consumers and automakers alike to bend to government wishes, all other considerations be damned.

In an attempt to make their demands come to fruition, Ottawa will slap ever higher taxes-- and other punitive measures—on lower cost, more efficient gas-powered vehicles…while providing ever larger subsidies to both consumers and manufacturers of purportedly “zero emission” electric vehicles, artificially driving sales in the direction it wants.

Ironically, the expense of purchasing and charging electric vehicles will make the proposed regulations disproportionately affect lower-income families. Low-income households would be less likely to afford at-home charging equipment and more likely to rely on publicly available charging stations that charge a premium on the cost of electricity. Moreover, folks in northern and remote/rural areas will simply not have easy access to charging stations, though leftists in the Trudeau government probably won’t care as these folks tend to be more conservative.

Furthermore, the electric grids-- Canadian and American-- are nowhere ready to handle a vast increase in the number of EVs on the road.

The federal governments won’t admit that, however. If they are telling consumers that electric vehicle mandates are to ensure that automakers produce enough EVs to meet demand, they must think their citizens are dumber than hubcaps-- and more docile, too.

Image: Oregon Department of Transportation, via Flickr // CC BY 2.0 DEED