In September, General Motors cut output at its EV plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, following on the delayed opening of a new truck plant last fall. Last summer, Ford scrapped plans for a big electric SUV and cut EV spending. And this past winter, Stellantis paused manufacturing of some EVs while putting new emphasis on hybrid vehicles.

But from this pit of sagging expectations, one North American automaker is springing back. In August, Ford unveiled its “Universal EV Platform,” a new concept in affordable production that it labelled “a Model T moment,” in a nod to its origin story. Ford’s iconic Model T motor buggy was a breakthrough in mass production and simple design that launched the modern automotive industry – and today’s car-based society – by reducing the cost of the family car from $825 in 1909 to $260 by 1925.

Ford CEO Jim Farley says the novel production process – combining a new, US$3-billion battery plant in Michigan with a $2-billion assembly system in Kentucky – will bring the price of EV pickups and crossover vehicles down to US$30,000, or roughly half the average cost of new EVs today in the United States.

Farley says the breakthrough comes from charging a small, elite innovation team in California – led by Tesla veteran Alan Clarke – to reimagine the way cars are made. “We locked the doors and kept the project secret,” said Ford EV chief Doug Field. “It had permission to question everything.”

The new system replaces an assembly line with an “assembly tree,” on which the front, back and floor of the vehicle will be assembled separately, and then brought together at the end of the line. The vehicles – a midsized pickup at first – will feature 20% fewer parts and a floor that’s actually an economical, 400-volt lithium iron phosphate battery. “Our target is a five-year cost of ownership that will be lower than buying a three-year-old Tesla Model Y, and they are pretty cheap right now,” Field said.

Industry watchers were quick to note that many of Ford’s innovations resemble systems already developed by Tesla and also employed by Chinese competitors. “That was a watershed moment,” Terry Woychowski, a former auto executive, told Yahoo Finance. “Before you can beat somebody, you better catch up with them, so that’s a huge step.”

“We’re only in the second inning of this EV transformation,” Farley told The Detroit News earlier this month. “I don’t take anything for granted about the continuous improvement we have to make.”

But car-buyers continue to be spooked by high prices. A recent survey found that 73% of consumers report holding off from buying a new vehicle for budget reasons. While Ford’s plans for a $30,000 electric pickup might not be affordable enough for many buyers, other carmakers are also rushing to bring entry-level EVs to market: Chevrolet, Jeep and Honda all have sub-$30,000 EVs on the horizon.

Elon Musk, meanwhile, has abandoned his pledge to produce a $25,000 Tesla (the low-priced Model 3 sells for $42,500 in the United States), so critics are granting Ford the win for building North American–made EVs that just may compete with low-cost Chinese automakers.

With files from Mark Mann.

Rick Spence is the editor-at-large at Corporate Knights.

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It resembled a sales pitch for Musk’s company, the country’s biggest seller of EVs. Tesla has lost more than half of its value since December as sales have plummeted worldwide. With Musk dismantling parts of the federal government as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE, the vehicles have become a toxic symbol for Democrats, a large portion of Tesla owners. Over the past week, protesters have vandalized Tesla dealerships, set Cybertrucks aflame and boycotted the brand. Liberal Tesla drivers have slapped stickers on their cars that read “I bought this before Elon went crazy.”

The strong feelings surrounding Musk have already started to scramble the politics around EVs. Trump’s exhibition at the White House on Tuesday was a defence of Musk, who he said had been unfairly penalized for “finding all sorts of terrible things that have taken place against our country.” Yet the bizarre scene of Trump showcasing a vehicle that runs on electricity instead of gas felt almost like a sketch from Saturday Night Live, and not just because the Trump administration has been trying to reverse Biden-era rules that would have sped up the adoption of low-emission vehicles. Here were the two biggest characters in MAGA politics promoting a technology that’s been largely rejected by their right-wing base.

Other prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, quickly moved to defend Tesla against vandalism that Trump is labelling “domestic terrorism.” Tesla’s sudden shift from Democratic status symbol to Republican icon has some thinking the controversy around Musk could lead to a bipartisan embrace of EVs.

“He’s uniquely positioned to and has the power to really shape this debate and help bridge the divide here,” said Joe Sacks, executive director of the American EV Jobs Alliance, a non-profit trying to prevent “silly partisan politics” from stopping a manufacturing boom for electric vehicles. “I’m unsure if that’s what he’s going to use his new perch and his role in the administration to do, but it seems like he has the ability to do that.”

According to polling the alliance conducted after the November election, Republicans have warmed up to Musk, with 82% of those polled saying that Musk is a good ambassador for EVs. A solid majority of Trump voters – 64% – said they viewed Tesla favourably, compared with 41% of those who voted for Kamala Harris. “Republicans are probably inching towards the idea that there shouldn’t be much of a cultural divide on this product category, if the market leader CEO is sitting next to President Trump in the Oval Office during press conferences,” Sacks said.

The data aligns with a recent analysis from the financial services firm Stifel, which found that Tesla has become more favourable among Republicans as its popularity plunges with Democrats. Compared to August, 13% more Republicans are willing to consider purchasing a Tesla.

Yet there are reasons to suspect that EVs will continue to be a hard sell for Republicans. They are typically tradition-minded people who like big cars, not small cars with new technology they’ve never used before, said Marc Hetherington, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-author of the book Prius or Pickup? “Conservatives don’t have the sensibility that fits with electric vehicles at all,” he said. “So I don’t think that you’re going to see a spike in Tesla sales among conservatives.”

Alexander Edwards, president of the research consultancy Strategic Vision, said that Republicans view gas-powered cars as a more practical purchase for transporting their families from place to place. That’s based on his firm’s surveys, which examine the psychology behind the car choices of about a quarter-million Americans a year. “I think Elon made a bet that I think he’s secretly regretting, that Republicans would come out of the woodwork and say, ‘Yes, we’re going to support you,’” Edwards said.

If they came around to any electric vehicle, however, it might be a Tesla. One of the primary things Republicans care about when it comes to buying a car is that it looks fast and goes fast, and Tesla has seen more Republican buyers for that reason, Edwards said. Democrats have consistently been buying electric vehicles at a rate of four to one compared to Republicans, but two to one when it comes to Teslas, according to Edwards’s data. Last year, more Republicans than Democrats bought Teslas for the first time – not because more Republican flocked to the brand, but because Democrats pulled away from it.

For Democrats, who had long been criticized as having a smug attitude for driving a Prius, Teslas offered a cool and desirable alternative with less baggage when they took off in the early 2010s. “Tesla was able to finally give Democratic buyers what they were looking for – a Prius-like image of being thoughtful, combined with the fun and excitement of a real luxury sports car,” Edwards said. That started to change as Musk became a magnet for political controversy, starting with his takeover of Twitter in 2022. A Tesla EV became a symbol of Tesla’s CEO.

“Doesn’t matter if you’re Republican or Democrat – when you jump into the Batmobile, you become Batman,” Edwards said. “And the same thing is true with the vehicles we purchase. We often want them to show who we are, what we’ve accomplished, what we stand for.”

Of course, there are ways to depolarize electric vehicles that don’t rely on cues from Trump or Musk. Sacks recommends talking about the attributes of electric vehicles: their ability to accelerate faster and brake more crisply, as well as help people save money for every mile they drive, since there’s no need to buy gas. When people have friends or family who own an EV, that also helps break down the cultural divide, he said.

In a way, you could see Trump becoming a salesman for electric vehicles as an example of that very phenomenon, with his self-described “first buddy” convincing him to come around. Just two years ago, Trump complained that EVs needed a charge every 15 minutes and would kill American jobs. But, after Musk endorsed his presidential campaign last summer and donated $288 million, Trump softened his tone, saying that he was in favour of “a very small slice” of cars being electric. “I have to be, you know,” Trump said, “because Elon endorsed me very strongly.”

On Tuesday, as Trump climbed into his new electric car for the first time, he seemed surprised by what he saw there. “That’s beautiful,” he said, admiring the dashboard. “This is a different panel than I’ve had. Everything’s computer!”

This article originally appeared in Grist. It has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style. Grist is a non-profit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at grist.org.

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At least, that is what leaders in Quebec are banking on, as the province gears up to assume an axis position in the world’s electrified transition. Quebec’s riches have long been on display. One of the mining capitals of the country, accounting for one-fifth of Canada’s mineral production, it has baked into its bedrock the precious elements coveted in the electric vehicle boom – graphite, nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum and the showstopper: lithium. And increasingly, the provincial and federal governments have been pouring money into the rest of the supply chain, with investments like the one slated for the green fields in Saint-Basile-le-Grand and McMasterville, a short drive from Montreal.  

Here, Swedish climate-tech giant Northvolt has plans to build a “gigafactory” the size of 318 football fields that the federal government calls the cornerstone of a unique integrated battery production line in Canada. With more than $7 billion in investments and incentives, the first phase of the project at “Northvolt Six” will have an annual cell production capacity of 30 gigawatt hours and create up to 3,000 jobs in the region. They will be making what Ottawa has called “the world’s cleanest batteries,” at a rate of one million per year once the plant is fully operational.

But big questions loom over Quebec’s battery bet, amid an energy landscape that appears to be shifting by the day. A recalibration of the explosive growth projected for electric vehicles is forcing companies such as Northvolt to shrink their global operations, even as competition from neighbouring Ontario to attract EV business grows. While protectionist tariffs against more affordable Chinese-made EVs will affect how quickly Canadians make new mobility choices, the energy transition is nonetheless moving full steam ahead in Quebec, where EV adoption is among the highest in the country.  

“Getting a car manufacturer in Quebec was not my objective,” says Pierre Fitzgibbon, Quebec’s former minister of economy and energy, in an August interview, expressing a divergent path from that of Ontario, which includes EV assembly. 

Fitzgibbon, who resigned his post in September, travelled to Japan, South Korea and China in 2019 – when “the word ‘battery’ was not in Quebec’s vocabulary” – with a goal of understanding how the Asian powerhouses had secured a head start in the EV race. He came back focused on leaning into Quebec’s competitive advantage. “My objective was: how can we transform here in Quebec our critical minerals, as opposed to what had been happening before, which was to export it on a raw basis,” he says. “We’re setting up a kind of ecosystem.”  

The provincial government touts itself as the first in the country to develop a critical minerals strategy, which it first released in 2020. At the moment, there are 25 mines in varying stages of economic evaluation or exploration to produce the minerals needed for energy transition. That’s on top of the one graphite mine, one lithium mine and two mines already extracting combinations of nickel, copper and cobalt. Quebec’s strategy is buttressed by circularity, mining the “urban mine” of used, recalled or damaged batteries that are piling up around us. In June, doors opened on the province’s first critical minerals extraction plant, by Lithion Technologies, located on the outskirts of Montreal and one of the first in North America. Once fully operational, the facility will have the capacity to shred 45,000 EV batteries per year. 

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Beyond the precious elements in its soil, Quebec’s ample hydro power – at what the minister calls a “very reasonable” price – offers companies the chance to build sustainability into their business models.  

Of course, it’s not just about access to cheap green energy. In the race to secure a place in the EV transition, governments around the world have been pushed to provide hefty incentives to lure investment (or block competition, like the 100% tariffs on Chinese-made EVs by Canada and the U.S., and lower ones in Europe). Canada and Quebec have been matching the kind of production support available under the U.S.’s Inflation Reduction Act for the Northvolt battery line, topping out at $4.6 billion. In addition, Quebec has earmarked $3.46 billion in loans, subsidies and equity investment for 15 battery projects so far. Among the recipients of the funding is a cathode factory by General Motors and South Korea’s POSCO Chemical, in Bécancour, slated to be another battery hub, or “battery valley,” near Trois-Rivières. Construction on a third joint cathode venture, also in the Bécancour area but this time between Ford, Korea’s EcoPro BM and SK On, was recently put on hold.   

Strategy speedbumps

For all its green transition promise, the efforts are not without controversy. Fitzgibbon’s resignation unleashed a wave of criticism over how the Coalition Avenir Québec government was handling energy policy, with Conservative Party of Quebec leader Éric Duhaime calling its strategy of focusing on electrification and battery production “a very risky bet, potentially even already a failure.”  

The Northvolt project, due to its scope and degree of public investment, has garnered the most scrutiny thus far, especially from environmental groups and Indigenous communities that say the government has circumvented the rules and failed to properly consult and evaluate the project. Local residents have raised concerns about the potential environmental impacts, in particular on the Richelieu River, which is a source of drinking water for some 300,000 households and a biodiverse habitat with protected fish stocks. In more extreme examples of opposition, vandals have driven nails and metal bars into trees to prevent forests from being cut down and planted incendiary devices made of bottles filled with flammable liquid on the site. No one has been injured, but it’s put the community on edge and caught company and government officials off guard.  

“It’s really a case about how the government and minister of the environment take decisions about big industrial projects,” says Marc Bishai, a lawyer with the Quebec Environmental Law Centre (Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement, or CQDE). The group has filed a lawsuit challenging the provincial government’s decision to make a change to its environmental assessment rules, thus exempting the first phase of the plant from a comprehensive impact assessment, known in Quebec as a BAPE. A court denied CQDE’s bid to halt the felling of thousands of trees on the 170-hectare site. “The government is denying the public the ability to participate in the decision, which normally happens in Quebec,” Bishai says.  

The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake has also taken Quebec and Canada to court for allegedly breaching their duties to consult, both in terms of approval of the Northvolt project and, in the case of Quebec, over destruction of wetlands.  

Fitzgibbon denies that the rules were changed for the Northvolt project, although in March, Environment Minister Benoit Charette told the media that an environmental assessment at that juncture would have delayed approval and jeopardized Quebec’s chances to secure the gigafactory. He insisted the company will nonetheless have to satisfy the province’s stringent environmental standards.  

Navigating headwinds

On the streets of the picturesque village of Saint-Basile-le-Grand, community members raise concerns about potential environmental risks from the factory, while also expressing interest in the employment opportunities the complex would generate. Long-time residents such as Annie Chabot, a 57-year-old educator, say the issue has been divisive. Chabot wishes the government had undergone a more extensive environmental assessment. “But I’m not against the project,” she says.  

Northvolt is facing other headwinds. With the projected growth of EVs slowing in the near term, driving companies such as Ford to reevaluate their plans, the company announced in July that it was undergoing a “strategic review,” prompting a flurry of media coverage speculating that Northvolt Six was in peril. The Swedish company has repeatedly stressed that it remains committed to Quebec, most recently in September, when it announced a slate of closures and mergers for several sites around the world, Northvolt Six not among them. Potential revisions to the timelines of the Quebec facility and others “will be confirmed during the fall, along with any further necessary cost-saving actions,” the company said in a statement.  

As long as we still want to decarbonize the planet, this is a very sound strategy.

 

—Pierre Fitzgibbon, Quebec’s former minister of economy and energy

Fitzgibbon says delays are to be expected. The evolving technology may affect how quickly EVs are adopted but not if they are, he maintains. “As long as we still want to decarbonize the planet, this is a very sound strategy,” he says.

Quebec, which has a track record of leading environmental policy in Canada, has shown its commitment to the electric transition through consumer policy, too.  Since 2012, Quebec has offered a healthy rebate for the purchase or lease of an EV. And it has paid off. Quebecers are buying far more EVs than the rest of the country. Electric vehicles had a 21.5% chunk of the vehicle market in the province in the second quarter of this year (compared to 9.9% in Canada overall and 8% in the U.S.). In announcing its decision to phase out the financial incentive for EVs by 2027, the Quebec government said the industry no longer needs that extra help.  

For Normand Mousseau, director of the Trottier Energy Institute at Polytechnique Montréal and a co-chair of the Quebec Commission on Energy Issues in 2013, the success of Quebec’s battery bet is far from clear. He says that there is no obligation for manufacturers such as Northvolt to source their critical minerals from Quebec, so the fully integrated supply chain may not be realized. And he thinks the province missed a critical opportunity to link the energy transition to intellectual property.

 “There was no demand from these industries to invest in any research and development in Quebec. And it’s the same in Ontario,” he says, referring to large government subsidies for EV and battery plants. “We’ve seen it with Hyundai and GM. They set up shop here, and after a few years they leave, because there is nothing that ties them in terms of higher value.” 

 Still, he acknowledges that time is of the essence as the world races to decarbonize, and “you can sit on the side and wait until you have a perfect investment, or you take bets.” 

While some supply chain investments may look shaky, others, such as the Lithion Technologies battery recycling facility, are powering ahead. It’s already processing recalled or end-of-life car batteries. “We want to be able to create the circular economy so that the batteries we produce are the greenest possible batteries,” says CEO Benoit Couture, echoing the provincial government’s larger goal.  

It’s an important cog in Quebec’s aspirations, however they materialize. Regardless, the EV economy will keep driving forward.

Natalie Alcoba is a Buenos Aires–based journalist and senior editor at Corporate Knights.

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Car companies are increasingly embracing electric vehicles as a new market opportunity exposed by worsening climate and biodiversity crises. But, while electric vehicles have no tailpipe emissions, there are a lot more factors involved in producing a car: steel, tires, batteries and people affected along the supply chain. The mining and manufacturing of these metal-dense machines puts heavy burdens on landscapes, Indigenous peoples and workers. It’s not enough for a car to be EV to be considered truly “clean,” the report says.

The Lead the Charge coalition assembled 80 measures of what a clean car supply chain would look like, ranking the top 18 automakers against it. The indicators include policies and actions to promote using recycled materials, sustainable mining practices, unions and efforts to reduce emissions. The intention, the coalition says, is to encourage competition among firms pushing their suppliers to achieve responsible practices.

The ranking is in its second year, but car companies still have large blind spots, the authors say, especially related to the rights of Indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) on mining projects.

“What the scorecard shows me is that the automotive industry is really not ready to participate in the supply chain in a responsible way, and in particular, with respect to understanding, preventing and mitigating any impacts on Indigenous peoples,” says Kate Finn, executive director of First Peoples Worldwide, an Indigenous-led research and advocacy group at the University of Colorado Boulder and member of the coalition.

Around the world, more than half of identified deposits of minerals in high demand by electric vehicles and other climate technologies are on or near Indigenous and peasant lands.

The report defines a “clean car” as having (1) a fossil-free supply chain that also has the lowest possible negative impact on human health, biodiversity, resource depletion and ecosystem resilience; and (2) a supply chain throughout which the rights of Indigenous peoples, workers and local communities are respected.

U.S. automakers scored slightly better on average than their European rivals, and East Asian firms fell behind as they lacked policies to address decarbonization in the production of steel and aluminum. The average score was 19%, and no company scored above 50%.

It’s not enough for a car to be EV to be considered truly “clean.”

 

– Lead the Charge coalition

After Ford and Mercedes-Benz, Tesla appeared in the third slot, up from last year’s ninth spot, the largest jump of any firm. One reason was that it became the first to disclose specific emissions from its use of steel, a ubiquitous material that emits significant greenhouse gases during smelting.

The coalition named Toyota and Honda “climate laggards,” due to continued failure to disclose actions to reduce emissions and a history of lobbying against climate action. The rapidly expanding Chinese firms BYD, SAIC and GAC also ranked low, as they published little information about their supply chain and had few disclosures in general.

The authors note that Chinese firm Geely, however, stood out for its improvement over just a year in setting human rights policies for its supply chain.

Of the car companies mentioned — GM, Ford, Toyota, Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, BYD, SAIC, GAC, Honda and Geely — only Mercedes-Benz responded to Mongabay’s request to comment.

Its statement reads: “We consider ‘Lead the Charge’ to be a meaningful benchmark. The research and results are well-founded and published transparently. In addition, the benchmark interacts directly with the evaluated companies. We also welcome the objective of interaction with the organizations behind Lead the Charge. Overall, we are pleased with the result, which at the same time gives us an incentive to continue our intensive efforts.”

Steel, body and batteries

In addition to human rights issues, the scorecard has a focus on some of the most dominant materials in an electric car: steel, aluminum and the lithium-ion battery, which often includes lithium, nickel and cobalt. The steel and aluminum industries together emit roughly 10% of all greenhouse gases, and in an electric car, the materials account for more than half the weight, according to a report by consulting firm Kearney. The car industry consumes the third-highest amount of steel of any industry, and it is the top user of aluminum and batteries.

The battery makes up roughly another quarter of the car’s weight. Some companies in the ranking received higher scores because they sell batteries without nickel and cobalt, an emerging trend as they adopt lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, which are believed to have lower supply chain risks.

The emissions of steel and aluminum have received less public scrutiny than battery materials, and car companies have made scant progress on pushing suppliers to reform climate-warming practices. A third of the companies have yet to take any action on decarbonizing their aluminum and steel supply. “Green” steel and aluminum make use of energy and processes that shrink emissions.

“Automakers have a big role to play to realize a transformed steel and aluminum industry, as they are major buyers and have a strong pull on global purchasing power,” says Annie Sartor, aluminum campaign director at Industrious Labs, a member of the coalition.

Chris Alford, senior strategist for auto supply chains at climate justice network the Sunrise Project and who helped design the methodology, says only official company disclosures were used to evaluate a firm’s actions. Firms are held accountable for official disclosures more strongly than marketing material or other actions.

“The way that we structured the leaderboard was actually to give more weighting to the indicators where companies have to provide evidence of concrete implementation of commitments and policies, as opposed to the ones that are really just, ‘Have you got a policy? Or have you made a commitment?’ or ‘Have you set a target?’” Alford said.

Handling critical minerals

The leaderboard highlights a few case studies within automotive supply chains that the authors say are worth addressing.

In Indonesia, which produces almost half of the world’s nickel, the production of this metal used in many lithium-ion battery types and in steel has been tied to deforestation, rising greenhouse gas emissions, mishandling of toxic waste and violations of the rights of Indigenous peoples. An analysis by Mighty Earth of satellite data found that Indonesia’s 329 nickel mining concessions have driven up to 378,970 hectares (more than 936,400 acres) of deforestation since 2000.

Ford has bought a direct stake in a developing nickel project in Indonesia, saying that it aims to produce a sustainable supply.

Mining firms and regulators, the authors say, have posed significant threats to Indigenous peoples who depend on these forests. In North Maluku, an uncontacted tribe had its customary territory granted to mining companies by government officials.

Indonesia’s nickel production also suffers from its reliance on electricity produced by coal-fired plants that are off-grid and within industrial zones, which has undermined its climate plans.

Indonesia’s nickel production relies on a smelting technology that produces three times as much waste as other nickel smelting facilities. Nickel firms have said they will process and store the waste on land, although experts have expressed doubt that it can be safely maintained, as rainfall and earthquakes could trigger leaks. Nearby in Papua New Guinea, a study found that toxic waste piped into the ocean is making its way into fish, terrestrial plants and even local residents.

U.S.-based GM is one of the few companies that have an explicit requirement for its suppliers to respect FPIC. However, the report notes, GM has invested directly in and seeks to supply from Lithium Americas and its project at Thacker Pass in Nevada, a site considered sacred to several tribes.

Lithium Americas has fielded multiple lawsuits filed by Indigenous groups that claim the infringement of religious rights, lack of consultation and potential groundwater contamination. In November, a judge ruled against three tribes that argued in a lawsuit that consultation needed to finish before operations began.

Solving the gap

Ian Lange, an economics professor at the Colorado School of Mines and adviser to former U.S. President Trump’s White House, expresses some doubt that there are short-term solutions to cleaning up supply chains for cars. Companies don’t have many options for selecting mined materials, he says, and suppliers have historically been unable to demonstrate the true origin of the materials they receive, sometimes taking liberties in providing false certificates of origin.

“It’s hard to keep track of all that,” Lange says.

In the long run, there are likely two solutions that the industry will devise, Lange says. A robust recycling market, which responsibly handles its waste and emissions, may be able to contain pollution and manage human rights concerns better. Also, mining companies may seek out jurisdictions, like the United States, where consumers may assume ethical sourcing.

The Thacker Pass project in Nevada is an early test of this idea. Considering the land and religious rights issues at Thacker Pass, Lange says, “no deposit is as pure as driven snow.”

Finn thinks producing minerals within the U.S. without ensuring FPIC is not likely to improve the social and environmental impacts that mining has on nearby communities. U.S. law does not achieve the FPIC standards outlined in the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, she says.

“This is our work at First Peoples [Worldwide]: to build the business case for free, prior and informed consent, and that companies have a responsibility to go above and beyond domestic regimes in terms of their responsibility to respect Indigenous peoples, they have the responsibility to do so all the way up to the level of the U.N. declaration,” Finn says.

This article was first published by Mongabay. Read the original story here. 

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The rule, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized on March 20, limits emissions from tailpipes on new cars, starting in 2027.

Well before the EPA finalized the new standard, powerful corporate lobbies like the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) had already promised to spend at least a million dollars campaigning against the rule by falsely portraying it as a “ban” on new cars. The group’s hyperbolic ads warn viewers that their freedoms and choices “will soon be taking a back seat to big government.”

The EPA predicts that the change would result in around two-thirds of new vehicle sales being hybrid or electric by 2032 — up from around eight percent today.

Beyond stopping more than 7 billion tons of carbon pollution, the agency predicts that the rule could save drivers more than $60 billion in fuel and maintenance costs, according to an EPA fact sheet that accompanied the final rule. The pollution reduction benefits would particularly benefit Black and brown communities because they are disproportionately likely to suffer from air pollution.

“These strongest-ever pollution standards for cars solidify America’s leadership in building a clean transportation future and creating good-paying American jobs,” EPA administrator Michael S. Regan said in a statement.

Compared to the EPA’s initial proposal, the final rule was scaled back to give car manufacturers more time to comply, but the New York Times still described the new standard as “one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history.”

The heads of AFPM and the American Petroleum Institute (API) — the leading trade group for the oil and gas industry — declared in a joint statement that the rule “will unequivocally eliminate most new gas cars and traditional hybrids from the U.S. market in less than a decade.”

In February, AFPM had already begun portraying the rule as a “car ban” and announced a “seven-figure issue campaign” featuring TV and digital ads, as well as billboards and text messages. Some of the efforts target electoral swing states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The group also launched a website that warns readers, in all caps, to “keep the government’s hands off our cars!”

Despite the industry’s attempt to misleadingly brand the new standard, “this is not a ban of internal combustion engines,” Margaret Wooldridge, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, said in a statement.

Last year, AFPM spent nearly $7 million lobbying the federal government — more than any year in its history — according to OpenSecrets.

The top two bills the group reported lobbying for are designed to prevent the EPA from finalizing or enforcing vehicle emissions standards. Both bills passed the House last year. (Chevron, API, Koch Industries, and Marathon Petroleum are among the other industry groups and companies that lobbied for these bills last year.)

In addition to lobbying Congress and running million-dollar public influence campaigns, corporate trade groups have increasingly used lawsuits and the threat of costly, time-consuming litigation to stop or delay climate-related regulations.

Earlier this month, for instance, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalized a long-delayed rule that requires public companies to disclose some of their emissions and climate risks that could impact their businesses. While the published rule was substantially weaker than what the SEC originally proposed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was among a handful of conservative interest groups that immediately challenged the measure in court.

Another recent EPA rule targeting methane emissions also met with opposition from Republican officials and oil and gas interests, according to Politico.

And on March 6, barely a month after the EPA finalized a separate rule limiting soot pollution, API, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Chamber were among eight trade groups that sued the agency in the D.C. Circuit court.

‘Prepared to challenge it in court’

In a blog post, AFPM claims that the EPA “does not have authority to overhaul the U.S. economy or transportation system or compel — directly or otherwise — the use of EVs to address vehicle emissions.”

Similar objections to the authority of federal agencies to issue regulations have found a receptive audience among the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.

If the EPA doesn’t undo the tailpipe emissions rule, “our organizations are certainly prepared to challenge it in court,” the AFPM and API CEOs said in the joint statement that followed the announcement.

In attacking the rule, corporate interest groups like AFPM are following a well-trod path of fighting new climate regulations on every playing field they can find.

During the Trump administration, AFPM helped lead a successful effort to weaken previous EPA fuel efficiency standards. The group helped marshal Republican governors to advocate for the rollback, while also supporting Energy4US, a front group that encouraged Americans to flood the EPA with public comments, as DeSmog previously reported.

“One of the big advantages that oil industry lobbyists like AFPM have is money, and AFPM certainly isn’t afraid to use it,” Jesse Coleman, a senior researcher at the investigative outlet Documented, told DeSmog in an email.

“Million dollar ad campaigns are an unfortunately common way for groups like AFPM to pressure legislators and regulators by raising the political temperature on an issue. Litigation slows things further, leading to years of delays in implementation.”

The story first appeared on DeSmog. Read the original article here.

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“Make no mistake, we are developing a clear understanding of the key levers needed to deliver a more profitable EV rental fleet in a world that is moving toward electrification,” Hertz CEO and Chair Stephen M. Scherr told a shareholder meeting last October, months before the EV sell-off news dropped.

“Transitions of this magnitude are not easy, and there are important factors, including charging infrastructure, the pace of OEM [original equipment manufacturer] production, and the growth of the EV aftermarket that we simply cannot control.”

EVs presented issues for Hertz that the company had not prepared for in its EV adoption projections. For one, Hertz said EVs came with significantly higher repair costs—not from regular maintenance, which executives said was cheaper than for internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, but from collision repair, where costs ran twice as high for EVs as their ICE counterparts.

There was also a higher rate of damaging incidents among EV rental drivers that made the cost difference a more significant issue. As one commentator pointed out, this may be because EV rental drivers who usually drive ICE vehicles may not have had enough time to get used to the differences in driving experience between the two vehicle types.

EVs are “heavier than gas-powered cars and they deliver the sort of acceleration that can slap the back of your head against the headrest, which could explain why Hertz said EVs are involved in more collisions than gas-powered rentals,” David Berman, investment reporter for the Globe and Mail, recounted from his own EV-driving learning curve.

Adding to that, Tesla had cut the list prices of its vehicles since Hertz’s initial investment, so that the company faced significant losses when it sold cars for salvage.

If you are “coming to the conclusion that Hertz’s ‘EV problem’ is, in reality, a ‘Tesla value and repair costs problem,’ you’re not alone,” wrote MotorTrend editor Alex Kierstein. “It’s difficult to draw conclusions about EV suitability for the rental car market when so many cost factors conspired against Hertz’s mostly Tesla fleet.”

Hertz’s executives have said the company still intends to pursue EV rentals as a long-term plan. Indeed, Scherr told shareholders there is “an undeniable transformation under way” as U.S. EV ownership rates rise, and as government and corporate demand for EVs grows.

Every year, EVs are increasingly taking up a larger share of total vehicle sales.

 

– Arthur Zhang, Canadian Climate Institute

“We know the challenges at hand and are working to remedy that, which we can,” said Scherr. “And we will pace ourselves accordingly with an expectation that our in-fleeting of EVs will be slower than our prior expectations, but we will be stronger for having begun the journey when we did.”

Berman said Hertz’s snail’s pace is not indicative of the wider market.

“By 2026, battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will account for 42% of European new passenger vehicle sales and 52% of sales in China,” he wrote, and while the U.S. is “a notable laggard,” EVs will account for 28% of vehicle sales by 2026 even there.

Meanwhile, “by 2026, sales of gas-powered cars will be 39% below their peak in 2017.”

In Canada, ICE vehicle sales have already peaked, writes 440 Megatonnes, a project of the Canadian Climate Institute.

“Every year, EVs are increasingly taking up a larger share of total vehicle sales,” research associate Arthur Zhang says in a new blog post. “EV sales grew at a staggering annual rate of 46%, increasing over eightfold between 2017 and 2023,” and sales in the first three quarters of 2023 surpassed volumes for the entire previous year.

This article was first published by The Energy Mix. Read the original story here.

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The United Auto Workers (UAW) strike began on September 15 at selected Detroit plants run by automakers General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, and has since expanded in a bid for better wages, benefits, and job security for members.

But weeks of negotiation ensued after the Detroit Three said they could not afford to meet union demands because they needed to invest profits in the costly transition from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles, reports the Associated Press.

Push to Unionize EV Plant Workers

“Perhaps most important to the union is that it be allowed to represent workers at 10 electric vehicle battery factories, most of which are being built by joint ventures between automakers and South Korean battery makers,” AP adds. “The union wants those plants to receive top UAW wages. In part that’s because workers who now make components for internal combustion engines will need a place to work as the industry transitions to EVs.”

On October 6, the UAW announced the strike was working, after an unexpected concession by GM to allow workers at its joint venture battery plants to be covered by union contracts, Reuters reports. The union said it would hold off additional strikes against the Detroit Three, but on October 9, 4,000 unionized workers at Mack Trucks went on strike after a separate five-year deal was voted down. The total number of UAW members on strike now exceeds 30,000 across 22 states, the union says.

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Much has changed since that frustrating day four years ago. Back then, it wasn’t unusual for Huerta, who is now the nonprofit’s chief operating officer, to spend hours driving across the state’s San Joaquin Valley servicing vehicles and solving members’ problems. Today, Miocar has a dedicated team to service its fleet of three Nissan Leafs and 34 Bolts spread across 10 locations (it plans to add more cars and locations by the end of the year) while offering guidance to anyone interested in establishing a community-based car share.

Zero-emissions vehicles are essential to achieving global climate goals. But climate policy experts warn that a one-to-one shift from gas to electric cars could exacerbate other forms of social injustice. Such a change could, for example, fuel environmental degradation and worker exploitation in the Global South, where most of the metals needed for batteries are mined. Here at home, people with low incomes struggle to afford EVs, even with ample incentives. Others are often unfamiliar with technology that’s typically targeted at the affluent. Those who can afford the cars often have precious few places to plug them in.

“I think it’s great that we’re moving towards zero-emissions vehicles,” Huerta said, “but the communities that are continuously left behind are still being left behind.”

To avoid such potholes, a growing number of programs like Miocar are forging an equitable path to zero-emissions transportation by making battery-powered cars accessible to everyone. (Huerta says Miocar is a play on “the Spanglish of the San Joaquin Valley” that tags the Spanish word for “mine” to the word “car.”) Such efforts have emerged in locations as diverse as Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and Los Angeles, bolstered in part by state and local assistance. Earlier this year, for example, the Washington state Department of Transportation awarded $2.8 million to spur EV car-share efforts in low-income communities statewide.

Beyond enabling a just transition and reducing the number of vehicles — and resources — needed to electrify transportation, electric car sharing represents a shift away from an economy of ownership to one of access, allowing people to embrace environmentally conscious mobility without the burden of buying a car.

What sets community-based nonprofits like Miocar apart from international for-profits like ZipCar is its focus on offering zero emissions vehicles to income-qualified users at reduced rates — often just $4 to $10 an hour. Cars are reserved online, charged up, and can be used for as long as 24 or even 48 hours, depending on the program. For some folks, it’s an easy way of running an errand, taking a pet to the vet, or simply getting somewhere beyond the bus line. For others, it’s an opportunity to get comfortable with an EV before buying one of their own.

With most of Miocar’s users having never so much as sat in an EV before signing up, some are uncertain, even intimidated, at first. Huerta says the most common concern is that the battery might die. But Miocar, like other EV car shares, ensures its cars are charged, and provides dedicated parking spaces with chargers. People are expected to plug in when they drop off. If they forget, there’s a warning, and repeated offenses result in small fines. To further alleviate the anxiety of exhausting the battery, Miocar employees, when orienting newcomers to the program, explain how to plan a trip and find chargers that accept the free charge cards provided with each vehicle.

Once they start driving, users tend to love the vehicles for their ease, quiet, and comfort. “I’ve had conversations with a few that are like, ‘Oh my God, I never knew how much I would enjoy driving this,’” Herta said. When that happens, Miocar connects users to organizations that can explain the tax credits and other incentives that defray the cost of buying an EV, which can go for an average of $61,488 new.

Of course, when people rely on car-share programs instead of purchasing a vehicle of their own, traffic and street congestion drops. In 2016, researchers at the University of California-Berkeley Transportation Sustainability Research Center found that for every car-share vehicle deployed, 7 to 11 others were taken off the road or never put there in the first place. Such findings have been repeatedly supported as these programs have grown.

That said, not everyone can ditch their car. A personal vehicle isn’t so much a luxury as a necessity in rural areas, Huerta said. That’s why Miocar’s mission is guided by the question, “How are we going to be able to do this in an equitable manner where everyone is able to get the same access to resources?”

I think it’s great that we’re moving towards zero-emissions vehicles, but the communities that are continuously left behind are still being left behind.

 

– Gloria Huerta, chief operating officer at Miocar

These programs bridge an essential gap. Low-income communities are not only supermarket and pharmacy deserts; they’re charging deserts, too. Although there is a great need for equitable charging infrastructure, Susan Buchan, the executive director of Good2Go, Boston’s EV car share, said building chargers in frontline communities solves just half the problem. The communities need easy and affordable access to electric vehicles to make the chargers more than just harbingers of green gentrification.

“I’ve heard folks say that it’s kind of a slap in the face to watch somebody pull up in a Tesla, charge, and take off,” she said.

Still, bringing equity-focused car shares online can be a bumpy road. Beyond the technical hassles and occasional vehicle recalls, the economic challenges are formidable. “For public-backed car sharing, one of the biggest barriers is funding,” said Lauren McCarthy, a program director at the nonprofit Shared Use Mobility Center. “They’re not usually profitable operations.” Buchan concurred: “Achieving your mission makes you have a more negative balance sheet in this gig.”

Typically, public funding is available only during the pilot and lasts just a few years. That’s why McCarthy — who oversees a state-backed program in California that provides voucher funding to support shared-mobility initiatives — and the Shared Use Mobility Center offer a year of assistance after initial funding ends to help programs achieve financial sustainability.

Insuring the vehicles is a major hurdle on that path: “Our number one line item,” Buchan said. Despite requiring that drivers be over 21 and possess a clean driving record, Massachusetts places car shares like Good2Go in the highest risk category, driving up premiums. Other states, including California and Minnesota, have more relaxed policies, but McCarthy considers insurance requirements an obstacle to the expansion of shared mobility.

Outreach can be another challenge. In 2021, when Good2Go launched, it struggled with enrollment. The program revamped its efforts the following year, organizing catered events at affordable housing complexes to give residents an opportunity to drive their cars. Membership jumped 300 percent to 160 people, ensuring its fleet of six vehicles gets ample use. Buchan expects the growth to continue as long as the program can continue providing enough vehicles to meet demand.

As more programs like these appear, grow, and become self-sustaining, they have the potential to shift the default means of mobility. “The premise of private car ownership doesn’t need to define our society,” McCarthy said. “There should be multiple options available to you.” In a world of shared transportation, picking up a community-owned car would be one of these options, as would busing, walking, or grabbing a bike or scooter from the sidewalk. As long as our cities are designed to support these programs, an equitable future for clean mobility would look like one in which access takes priority over ownership, and in which we share to show how much we care.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/equity/a-simple-way-to-make-electric-cars-more-accessible-share-them/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

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Several states and cities, aiming to expand EV use, are now trying to lift that barrier to ownership with “right to charge” laws.

Illinois’ governor signed the latest right-to-charge law in June 2023, requiring that all parking spots at new homes and multiunit dwellings be wired so they’re ready for EV chargers to be installed. Colorado, Florida, New York and other states have passed similar laws in recent years.

But having wiring in place for charging is only the first step to expanding EV use. Apartment building managers, condo associations and residents are now trying to figure out how to make charging efficient, affordable and available to everyone who needs it when they need it.

Electric cars can benefit urban dwellers

As a civil engineer who focuses on transportation, I study ways to make the shift to electric vehicles equitable, and I believe that planning for multiunit dwelling charging and accessibility is smart policy for cities.

Transitioning away from fossil-fueled vehicles to electric vehicles has benefits for the environment and the health of urban residents. It reduces tailpipe emissions, which can cause respiratory problems and warm the climate; it mitigates noise; and it improves urban air quality and quality of life.

Surveys show most EV drivers charge at home, where electricity rates are lower than at public chargers and there is less competition for charging spots. In California, the leading state for EVs, 88% of early adopters of battery electric cars said they were able to charge at home, and workplace and public charging represented just 24% and 17% of their charging sessions, respectively. Nationwide, about 50% to 80% of all battery electric car charging sessions take place at home.

Yet almost a quarter of all U.S. housing structures have more than one dwelling unit, according to the 2019 American Housing Survey. In California, 32.5% of urban dwellings have multiple units, and only a third of those units include access to a personal garage where a charger could be installed.

Even if installing a personal charger is an option, it can be expensive in a multiunit dwelling if wiring isn’t already in place. And it often comes with other obstacles, including the potential need for electrical upgrades or challenges from homeowner association rules and restrictions. Installing chargers can involve numerous stakeholders who can impede the process – lot owners, tenants, homeowners associations, property managers, electric utilities and local governments.

However, if a 240-volt outlet is already available, basic charger installation drops to a few hundred dollars.

Right-to-charge laws aims for ubiquitous home charging

Right-to-charge laws aim to streamline home charging access as new buildings go up.

Illinois’ new Electric Vehicle Charging Act requires that 100% of parking spaces at new homes and multiunit dwellings be ready for electric car charging, with a conduit and reserved capacity to easily install charging infrastructure. The new law also gives renters and condominium owners in new buildings a right to install chargers without unreasonable restriction from landlords and homeowner associations.

California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Virginia also have right-to-charge laws designed to make residential community charging deployment easier, as do several U.S. cities including Seattle and Washington, D.C. Most apply only to owner-occupied buildings, but a few, including California’s and Colorado’s, also apply to rental buildings.

Chicago officials have considered an ordinance that would include existing buildings, too.

Sharing chargers can reduce the cost

There are several steps communities can take to increase access to chargers and reduce the cost to residents.

In a new study, colleagues and I looked at how to design shared charging for an apartment building with scheduling that works for everyone. By sharing chargers, residential communities can reduce the costs associated with charger installation and use.

The biggest challenge to shared charging is often scheduling. We found that a centralized charging management system that suggests charging times for each electric car owner that aligns with the owner’s travel schedule and the amount of charge needed can work – with enough chargers.

In a typical multiunit dwelling in Chicago – with an average of 14 cars in the parking lot – a small community charging hub with two level 2 chargers, the type common in homes and office buildings, can cover daily residential recharging demand at a cost of about 15 cents per kilowatt-hour. But having only two chargers means residents are waiting on average 2.2 hours to charge.

A larger charging hub with eight level 2 chargers in the same city avoids the delay but increases the cost of charging to 21 cents per kWh because of upfront cost of purchasing and installing the chargers. To put that into context, the average electricity cost for Chicago residents is 16 cents per kWh.

The future of charging management at multiunit dwellings will be automated for efficiency, with a computer or artificial intelligence determining the most efficient schedule for charging. Optimized scheduling can be responsive to the times renewable electricity generation sources are producing the most power – midday for solar energy, for example – and to dynamic electricity pricing. Automation can also eliminate delays for drivers while saving money and reducing the burden on the electric grid.

The current limited access to home charging in many cities constrains electric vehicle adoption, slows down the decarbonization of U.S. transportation and exacerbates inequities in electric vehicle ownership. I believe efforts to expand charging in multidwelling buildings can help lift some of the biggest barriers and help reduce noise and pollution in urban cores at the same time.

Eleftheria Kontou, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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As more people become concerned by the heat waves, forest fires and flooding exacerbated by climate change, they’re switching their carbon-emitting home appliances for electric, emissions-free alternatives. The impact of millions of electric vehicles, heat pumps, induction stoves and heat pump water heaters can be measured not only in carbon emission reductions, but in significant savings too.

Corporate Knights partnered with the Toronto Star to analyze the co-benefits of these clean technologies, quantifying just how much households can save by adopting them, and what their impact will be on emissions.

If someone had told you in 2008 – the year after the first iPhone was released – that in the next 15 years, virtually everyone in Canada would have a smartphone, you might have rolled your eyes all the way to the internet café (as you slowly tapped out a text on your numbered keypad).

Nowadays, it’s hard to believe we ever lived without the internet in our pockets. But that’s how adoption curves work: new technology is adopted slowly at first, then all at once.

The digital technology that swept our lives into this millennium changed the way we communicate and shop, plan trips and watch shows. But it also came with a heavy cost to the planet. The greenhouse gases produced by online video streaming exceed 1% of global emissions. Bitcoin miners produce more carbon emissions than all of Serbia.

The next wave of technological upgrades to our lives, however, will emit zero carbon. It’s going to change how we get around, the way we heat and cool our homes, and what we use to cook and take showers. The electric vehicle, heat pump, induction stove and heat-pump water heater may not alter our behaviour so much as texting and email. But they will revolutionize society, allowing us to continue to do many daily activities – only faster, more efficiently and without producing any emissions.

And they are poised to go from curiosity to ubiquity more quickly than you think.

Their carbon-saving potential is enormous. According to an analysis by Corporate Knights’ research division and shared with the Toronto Star, these four technologies alone would cut the average Canadian household’s carbon footprint by 80%. If everyone made the switch, it would eliminate 92 megatonnes from Canada’s national emissions annually – more than the entire oil sands produces.

The financial benefit is even greater. If everyone in Canada swapped out their existing gas-powered car, furnace, stove and water heater for these green technologies, the collective yearly savings would be more than $65 billion, the analysis found. That’s $4,300 per household.

If everyone in Canada swapped out their existing gas-powered car, furnace, stove and water heater for these green technologies, the collective yearly savings would be more than $65 billion and 92 megatonnes of CO2 – more than the entire oil sands.

These ecological and economic incentives have created the conditions for rapid adoption, motivating governments that have emission-reduction targets to meet and individuals feeling the squeeze of fossil-fuel-driven inflation.

Critics say fear of climate change will not prompt people to adopt new technology. They argue that we just love our gas stoves and gas-guzzling SUVs too much. But dozens of car dealers and HVAC professionals who spoke with the Star said EVs and heat pumps are popular not because they’re green – people are buying them for other reasons: convenience, comfort and cost savings. The end result is a win-win. People’s lives get better. They save money. And the faster these technologies are adopted, the fewer emissions Canada will produce.

Corporate Knights partnered with the Toronto Star to analyze the co-benefits of these clean technologies, quantifying just how much Canadians in each province can save by adopting them, and what their impact will be on emissions. The results vary widely across the country.

In Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia, where hydro dams provide cheap, carbon-free electricity, the benefit of ditching fossil fuels is the greatest. An average British Columbian household switching to these four technologies would save more than $4,800 per year and virtually eliminate their carbon footprint (83% average).

In provinces with carbon-intensive electricity, such as Alberta and Nova Scotia, switching off fossil fuels has a smaller impact – and can even make your emissions rise in some cases – but the financial benefits are not insignificant. An average Nova Scotian household adopting the four green technologies would save $5,200 per year and shrink their emissions by five tonnes (or 64%).

Switching now is also future-proofed. As the carbon tax rises, the cost savings grow – reaching an additional $790 per year on average* for every Canadian household in 2030. And as the electrical grids in these provinces decarbonize, the already low emissions will piggyback them right down to zero.

In the U.S., those figures will shift state-to-state as well. But in New York, households switching to these four technologies would save an average of US$2,133 per year while reducing their carbon footprints by 7.3 tonnes.

We’ve reached out to early adopters in Canada to find out about the benefits and challenges of these technologies and have created online calculators so you can figure out the estimated cost and emissions savings associated with each technology depending on where you live. While no one would say these four pieces of green technology are a panacea for solving climate change, they’re a big start. And they’re something individuals can do without waiting for the government to act (though the incentives and rebates help).

Each EV, water heater, heat pump and induction stove on its own may not make a big difference for the warming planet, but they will save a family hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a year. And as North Americans switch away from burning fossil fuels and electrify their lives, the cumulative power of individual action is undeniable.

Savings from switching to an electric vehicles

David Hollingworth is an active skier, someone who heads up to Whistler from his home in North Vancouver for a day on the slopes whenever the powder is fresh. But unlike many of his neighbours, he straps his skis to the top of his EV – a Nissan Leaf – for the trip into the mountains and leaves his family’s gas-powered car – a Honda CRV – at home. “It’s just a no-brainer, the cost savings,” he says. While it costs more than $100 to gas up the CRV, Hollingaworth estimates that an overnight charge for the Leaf runs him only about $2.

In the eight years since he bought his EV, Hollingworth says, he’s grown more enamoured with it. The electric car serves his family’s day-to-day needs so well they’ve cancelled the insurance on their gas-powered car except for a few months in the winter when they go on longer ski trips.

“I don’t keep a log of the expenses for both vehicles, but it’s just obvious. I’m sure that we’ve saved thousands of dollars in fuel and maintenance [with the EV],” he says. “Even driving the CRV a lot less, it seems to cost us at least $1,000 in repairs every year. And the Nissan Leaf, it’s basically maintenance-free.” Fuel and maintenance savings are often cited as the top benefits by EV owners. In B.C. – which has the highest gasoline prices in the country and some of the lowest electricity prices – those savings are $2,450 per year on average, according to the Corporate Knights analysis.

The savings assume charging at home using average electricity prices. Of course, many EV owners minimize their costs by charging overnight when electricity is cheaper and searching out free charging, still widely available.

While EVs have a reputation for being expensive, this is changing quickly. Many of the early high-end models are now making way for entry-level EVs priced far lower than the average cost of a new car in Canada, which hit $58,478 at the end of last year.

A survey of Toronto car dealerships last year turned up four EV models with a listing price below $40,000 and nine more between $40,000 and $45,000. These prices don’t include the $5,000 federal EV purchase subsidy, which is topped up by certain provinces, ranging from $2,500 in Newfoundland and Labrador to $7,000 in Quebec. (Ontario cancelled its EV purchase rebate in 2018 when Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives came into power.)

In B.C. and Quebec, the purchase subsidies are coupled with a sales mandate, requiring dealerships to have EVs available for purchase. (The federal government announced a nationwide sales mandate last December.) This combination has fuelled the fastest uptake of EVs in the country. Last year, EVs made up 16% of all new car sales in B.C. and 12% in Quebec.

Ontario lags behind. Only 6.5% of new car sales in the province were EVs last year. Since automakers send their EVs to the provinces that have sales mandates, Ontarians have to wait for months or even years on Canada’s longest EV wait lists.

In addition to savings, EVs also boast souped-up climate impacts. Even in provinces with electricity generated from fossil fuels, EVs dramatically reduce emissions because they’re so efficient. In an EV, up to 91% of the energy in the battery goes directly to turning the wheels, while in a gas-powered car, 84% of the energy in the gas tank is lost to heat and friction.

So in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where most electricity is generated by burning coal and natural gas, an average family would reduce their carbon emissions by 1.2 tonnes by switching to an EV, the Corporate Knights analysis found.

In Quebec, Manitoba and B.C., where most electricity comes from hydro dams, an EV would reduce a family’s carbon emissions by far more: 3.1 tonnes per year.

Nationwide, if everyone switched to an EV, it would reduce Canada’s carbon emissions by 57.8 megatonnes, or about 8.6% of all emissions. This assumes we maintain our current electrical generation sources. But if the federal government succeeds in getting our electrical grids to net-zero by 2035, EV adoption would reduce emissions by 67 megatonnes, or 10%.

On each trip up to Whistler in his Leaf, Hollingworth has to make a 20-minute stop in Squamish for a quick charge. He uses the opportunity to stretch and admire the mountains, taking pleasure, he says, in knowing he’s doing his part to protect them from climate change. “There is some type of endorphin or dopamine that happens when you know you just saved a bunch of carbon emissions.”

He says he thinks everyone will soon be driving EVs, not only to reduce emissions, but because they’re so much cheaper and more convenient to operate. “We’re in a transition period now. People will roll their eyes in the future when they look at how we lived today.”

Savings from switching to an electric heat pump

Shortly after Brian Gifford retired and moved back to Halifax, he knew he had to do something about the oil furnace in his basement, which was costing him $2,500 to run each winter. Not knowing that he had any choice but to continue to use oil, he added insulation to his basement, walls and attic – and saw his heating bills go down to $1,700.

Five years later, he was told his firebox had a crack and the furnace would have to be replaced, so he looked at switching to natural gas – newly available in the Maritimes – or buying an electric heat pump. “Both environmentally and financially, heat pumps made a whole lot more sense,” he says. Installed in 2015, the heat pump has reduced his annual heating bill to $700 – about a quarter of what it used to be. “The heat pump is a huge, huge benefit, especially in places like the Maritimes, where heating costs are relatively high because we use oil,” he says. “We’re saving a lot of money. We’re really happy with that.”

For decades, heat pumps weren’t powerful enough to heat through Canadian winters. But a new generation of cold-climate heat pumps now available have been shown to work in the deep cold of Whitehorse. They also do double duty, running in reverse to provide air conditioning in the summer.

Much like the EV, the heat pump electrifies something that’s traditionally powered with fossil fuels. And like an EV, switching to a heat pump to heat your home saves money and reduces emissions – even on a dirty grid, like Nova Scotia’s – because the technology is so much more efficient.

While the newest natural gas furnaces operate at 98% efficiency, heat pumps are 220 to 320% efficient in Canadian conditions. This means that in a furnace, one unit of energy in natural gas produces 0.98 units of heat in your home. But with a heat pump, one unit of energy in electricity produces 2.2 to 3.2 units of heat. This works because heat pumps use ambient heat in the air and concentrate it, gaining a multiplier effect on the energy used to power the process.

As a result, heat pumps promise cost savings not only for people who switch from natural gas and oil furnaces, but for those switching from electric baseboards, because they will use far less electricity to produce the same amount of heat.

The Corporate Knights research division calculated that for a typical single-family detached house in Nova Scotia, switching from an oil furnace to a heat pump would save $1,750 in annual heating costs. They would save even more switching from baseboard heating: $2,773 per year.

The price to install a heat pump can vary from around $4,500 for a hybrid (one that works with your existing furnace) to upwards of $20,000 for a top-of-the-line centrally ducted model. Federal government rebates of up to $5,000 and zero-interest loans of $40,000, both offered through Ottawa’s Greener Homes Initiative, can significantly reduce how much you pay out of pocket at the outset. It can even eliminate the cost: if you’re switching from oil to a heat pump, there’s a special federal program that will cover up to $10,000.

Provincial rebates stack on top of the federal ones, offering an additional $5,000 in Ontario and Nova Scotia and up to $20,000 in Quebec, reducing upfront costs even further.

Since the federal subsidies were introduced in 2021, heat pump adoption has shot up, surpassing sales of natural gas furnaces in Canada for the first time, according to wholesale shipment information tracked by the Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada.

Because of their efficiency, heat pumps use far less energy to heat than furnaces, but just how big their impact is on carbon emissions is mostly determined by how the electricity is generated. In Nova Scotia, where the majority of electricity comes from coal and oil, switching from an oil furnace to a heat pump will reduce a typical household’s emissions by 1.2 tonnes. In provinces with lots of carbon-free renewable electricity, the greenhouse gas reductions are even greater. In Ontario, for example, a household making the switch to a heat pump would reduce their emissions by 4.2 tonnes and save $489 a year at today’s gas prices – savings that will nearly double by 2030 as the carbon price increases.

Canada-wide, if everyone switched to heat pumps, it would produce annual savings of $13.5 billion and emission reductions of 26.3 megatonnes, equal to 4% of Canada’s total GHG emissions, according to the Corporate Knights analysis.

For a peek at the future, look no further than Sweden, where heat pumps have almost entirely replaced oil for residential heat. Since 1990, heat pumps have been responsible for reducing carbon emissions from heating by 95%, according to Martin Forsén, the president of the European Heat Pump Association, who gave a recent presentation in Toronto. The adoption of heat pumps has gone so well in his Scandinavian country that he sees their global dominance as an inevitability. “I don’t think it’s a question of if. It’s just a question of when,” he says.

That’s a sentiment Gifford shares. Heating by burning fossil fuels in your basement will soon be a thing of the past. “It’s a necessary change and I’m looking forward to it,” he says. “It can’t happen soon enough.”

Savings from switching to an electric water heater and induction stove

Anya Barkan’s water heater was 15 years old and “a piece of garbage” when she called her rental company and asked for it to be replaced. After some back and forth that left her frustrated, she decided to break free from the rental contract she had inherited when she bought her home and get a heat-pump water heater. “It just made sense. We wanted to stop that monthly fee and get something that is much more energy-efficient and also not reliant on natural gas,” she says.

Breaking the contract proved much harder than getting the heat-pump water heater. But ever since, Barkan says, she has been happy – and not only because she no longer pays the monthly rental fee. “It’s like shooting two birds with one stone. It’s not just one thing or the other. You can make your house more efficient and lower your bills. But also, it’s better for the environment in terms of fighting climate change.”

Water heaters don’t have a huge impact on gas bills on their own. But like gas stoves, they are often one of the few links to the natural gas system in a home. If swapping these two gas appliances for electric means being able to cut your gas line, it supercharges the savings because it eliminates the fixed monthly charge for natural gas, which comes to $325 a year in Ontario.

The Corporate Knights research found that swapping out the gas water heater for one that operates with a heat pump would save an Ontario family $124 per year. Similarly for an induction stove: the annual savings in Ontario for switching from a gas stove are only $5, but if switching allows you to cut your gas line, those combined savings jump to $454 a year.

But it’s not just economics. There are other reasons people are looking to get rid of their gas stoves. Worries about air quality in the home surfaced earlier this year after an official with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said the agency was considering banning new gas stoves amid research that links them to childhood asthma.

While the ensuing uproar prompted the head of the agency to walk back talk of a ban, the health hazards are real. Health Canada’s residential indoor air-quality guidelines estimate that 25% of houses with gas stoves exceed the exposure limit for nitrogen dioxide, one of the toxic compounds released when a gas stove is turned on and “for brief periods of time after cooking,” even with “moderate ventilation.”

Meanwhile, some professional chefs recommend switching to induction stoves for performance reasons alone, saying they’re faster to heat up, more responsive, not as hot to work over and easier to clean.

Soon, people moving into new houses and apartments could have no choice but to go without gas appliances. Dozens of cities across the United States, recently joined by Vancouver, have banned natural gas hookups in new developments. New York State just passed a similar ban statewide, and Toronto and Montreal city councils are considering similar measures.

Even though they burn little gas, the climate impact of eliminating these gas-burning appliances isn’t negligible. Switching from a gas stove to induction will reduce an average Ontario household’s indoor emissions of greenhouse gas by 370 kilograms. Swapping a gas water heater for a heat pump version saves 640 kilos.

If everyone in Canada made these changes, the collective impact would reduce emissions by 7.6 megatonnes, more than 1% of all emissions in the country. It’s what analysts refer to as the light-bulb effect. When incandescent light bulbs were replaced by LEDs, the difference in electricity consumption was tiny for a lamp or light fixture. But multiplied across households, apartment buildings, university campuses and sport stadiums, the cumulative impact was enormous.

That’s where we’re at right now with climate change. The solutions are all readily available. The wind turbines and solar panels that will provide clean electricity are being adopted much faster than anyone predicted. Now it’s time to electrify and use that clean electricity to eliminate carbon emissions.

“It’s not just your individual action that will change the world,” says Barkan. “We need to go at it together.”

Full calculator

Calculate the cumulative impact of swapping out all four technologies below.

*To learn more about how averages were calculated, see our notes on assumptions and emission factors.

Marco Chown Oved, climate reporter, Toronto Star

Ralph Torrie, research director, Corporate Knights

Cameron Tulk, lead digital designer, Toronto Star

McKenna Deighton, digital designer, Toronto Star

Jack Dylan, creative director, Corporate Knights magazine

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