In a January analysis, the London-based think tank Ember compared the energy makeup of China and India at similar personal income levels and uncovered a massive difference. At $11,000, India’s current level and China’s 2012 level when purchasing-power parity is accounted for, India generates only 40% as much coal power as China did. Solar makes up 9% of its energy, compared to “negligible” amounts for 2012 China. India is the world’s most populous country, with almost 1.45 billion people, and China is second, with 1.4 billion.

But solar isn’t the only reason India is on a different trajectory: Ember is one of several global energy watchers drawing attention to the role of zero-emission bikes and tuk-tuks — three-wheeled motorized rickshaws — in the country’s accelerating green shift.

India remains the world’s second-largest net oil importer, half of which is used for vehicles. But Ember suggests that use has nearly peaked, compared to China at the same economic stage. “Road transport oil demand per capita is significantly lower, thanks first to smaller, lighter vehicles and now to the rise of electric vehicles,” write Kingsmill Bond and Sumant Sinha. Altogether, India is using cheap electric technology to “industrialise without the long fossil detour taken by China and the West.” With the country eyeing zero emissions by 2070, further electrifying road vehicles through policies designed to boost ease of use and adoption will play a critical role.

India can’t follow the same net-zero pathways that Western nations have embraced by encouraging EV adoption – only 7.5% of Indians own four-wheel passenger cars. By 2030, the Indian government’s policy think tank NITI Aayog and the Colorado-headquartered Rocky Mountain Institute have projected that 80% of two- and three-wheeled vehicles sold in India could be electric, compared to 30% of private automobiles. The IEA calls electric two- and three-wheelers “the most affordable and accessible entry point into electric mobility.” Not only do they not require significant charging infrastructure, but many of these smaller EVs can easily charge using standard sockets.

Navigating roadblocks

But there are speed bumps. Public charging and battery-swap infrastructure lags in India, especially outside of major cities like Delhi. With only about 25,000 public charging stations and 2,600 battery-swapping kiosks nationwide as of last April, rapid development is needed to reach zero-emission-vehicle goals.

Last year, Cardiff University professor Peter Wells told Polytechnique Insights that India was “lagging behind its ambitions.” Sales figures tell only part of the story. For instance, though nearly 60% of new two-wheelers sold are electric, their overall share was still only 5% in 2024. (Electric three-wheelers are more prevalent, at 50%.) EV performance in India is also still new enough to leave unsettled questions that could affect widespread adoption. “Long charging times, high ownership costs, and limited range can increase the risks for business owners investing in this new technology,” Wells said.

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In an International Council on Clean Transportation report on electric two-wheelers, Zifei Yang writes that buyers “are generally highly price-sensitive and upfront cost is often the main factor in purchase decisions,” since two- and three-wheeled EVs still cost more than gasoline models. But, Yang adds, the five-year total cost of EV ownership is less in India than for their fossil-fuel-powered cousins thanks to “battery capacity-based subsidies provided by the central and some state governments” and lower sales tax on EVs.

Competition is lowering prices, and if manufacturer announcements play out, domestic production capacity will increase by 70%. If India keeps on track with its goals, these small electrified vehicles will help it leave peak oil in the rearview mirror.

Rob Csernyik is a freelance journalist specializing in business and investigative reporting, as well as long-form features.

The post India’s many e-bikes and tuk-tuks are putting peak oil in sight appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Historically considered a theoretical shortcut across the top of the world, the geopolitically charged Northern Sea Route is gaining prominence, in particular as part of China’s “Polar Silk Road” initiative, which seeks to develop Arctic shipping routes and energy projects as an extension of the Belt and Road infrastructure diplomacy drive.  

In December, China achieved a key milestone with the maiden voyage of the China-Europe Arctic Express, a commercial liner service that travels the Northern Sea Route along Russia’s Arctic coast. The vessel Istanbul Bridge was the largest container ship to ever complete the journey, which took two months on the water and three years of preparation.  

China has long sought to establish a stronger economic and political presence in the Arctic, describing itself as a “near-Arctic state” in an official 2018 policy paper that identified warming in the region as a key incentive for deeper involvement. That paper launched China’s ambitions for a northern corridor and encouraged Chinese firms to invest in Arctic shipping infrastructure.  

But the momentum has caused concern among some big shipping players, who say the new route is still too dangerous. “Safe navigation cannot be assured,” Søren Toft, chief executive of the Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping Company, warned in a LinkedIn post earlier this year. “Sending container ships across the Arctic raises a lot of red flags,” Sian Prior, lead adviser for the Clean Arctic Alliance, said in response to the inaugural China-Europe Arctic Express journey. Andrew Dumbrille, the organization’s North American adviser, said the industry is ill-equipped to deal with accidents such as oil spills in the region because it doesn’t have emergency-response equipment nearby. “That means any spills will stay in the water for longer, wreaking more damage,” he said. 

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Some observers suggest that China’s systematic push into the Northern Sea Route does much more than undermine Arctic safety and threaten fragile natural systems. An important yet little-noticed 2025 report, Vessels on the Northern Sea Route, was published by the Bellona Environmental Transparency Center, which is part of the Bellona Foundation, an Oslo-based non-profit that fights oil and gas pollution. Established by staff who fled Russia in 2022, the group monitors Russia’s environmental impact, nuclear safety and Arctic pollution. They found that China’s growing maritime role in the region is deeply entangled with Russian geopolitical ambitions, Western sanctions evasion and environmental risk.  

The Northern Sea Route stretches 5,600 kilometres along the Russian Arctic coast, from the Kara Gate in the west to the Bering Strait in the east. Russia asserts extensive control along the route, regulating passage through a permit-based system that requires ships to use Russian pilotage services and icebreaker escorts in ice-covered conditions. Vessels transiting the Northern Sea Route are subject to Russian tariffs for these services, and those fees are collected by a subsidiary of Russia’s state nuclear company, Rosatom, which is closely integrated with the country’s military-industrial complex and linked to its invasion of Ukraine.  

Russia’s shadow fleet in the north 

The scale of traffic along the Northern Sea Route is steadily growing, and oil represents a large share of what’s making the trip. The 2025 summer–autumn season saw 103 transit voyages along the corridor, up from 97 in 2024. Thirty-four of the vessels last year were tankers, transporting about 1.9 million tons of crude oil. Fifteen container ships made the journey, including the Istanbul Bridge, up from 11 the previous year, and altogether they carried around 400,000 tons of containers. 

 China is positioning to take a bigger piece of the pie. In September, China’s NewNew Shipping Line signed agreements to invest up to five billion rubles to build a logistics complex in Provideniya Bay, to service vessels travelling along the Northern Sea Route. The company also has plans signed to develop container shipping through Murmansk’s ice-free port. 

Bellona found that most non-Russian-flagged vessels permitted onto the Northern Sea Route in 2024 transported Russian oil to China and India, violating sanctions. This “shadow fleet,” deployed in some of the world’s most hazardous waters, comprises poorly insured aging tankers, often without appropriate ice-class certification. 

The risks are severe. In 2024, Rosatom issued 1,312 permits to 975 vessels to enter the Northern Sea Route, of which 100 sailed under non-Russian flags, including 33 tankers carrying liquefied natural gas and 22 oil tankers. About one-third of them were not ice-class vessels, and more than half of these oil tankers were more than 15 years old.  

While China’s Polar Silk Road is building an important trade link with Europe, it’s also a sign of how commercial ambition could outrun governance in one of the world’s most fragile seas. 

Gordon Feller is a Global Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution. 

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Honda is being whipsawed by a decreasing emphasis on electric vehicles in the United States and a rapid shift to electric vehicles in China. The two markets are moving in opposite directions, with companies regretting EV investments in the United States and facing intense competition from upstart EV manufacturers in China.

Honda is not a company that expresses public frustration, but there was a sense of disappointment in its announcement last week about cancelling plans for three models of U.S.-made electric vehicles.

The U.S. government indicated just a few years ago that it would provide policy support for a transition to EVs and encouraged automakers to invest. Honda did just that, including a new battery plant in Ohio in partnership with LG Energy Solution. Then voters sent Donald Trump back to the White House and he dismantled this industrial strategy within months. Honda and other automakers were left exposed. Financial losses and job cuts followed.

That’s infuriating. But here is how Honda describes what happened, filtered through the language of corporate communication: “Previously, with stringent environmental regulations fully implemented in the U.S. and other countries, Honda pursued EV adoption with strong determination that striving for carbon neutrality is a responsibility Honda, as a manufacturer of mobility products, must fulfill for the future,” the company said in a news release. “However, in the U.S., the expansion of the EV market has slowed down due to several factors including the easing of fossil fuel regulations and revisions to EV incentives.”

I live in Columbus, Ohio, and I wrote about Honda for nine years while covering manufacturing and energy for The Columbus Dispatch. The company’s main North American manufacturing campus is less than an hour from Columbus, with factories in Marysville and East Liberty, Ohio.

While Honda is based in Japan, it produces more cars and light trucks in the United States than its home country and also has a major presence in China.

Honda’s announcement included disclosure of a US$15.7 billion charge related to restructuring its operations, which means the company is poised to post its first annual loss in about 70 years.

Previously, Honda had said it would manufacture three electric models in Ohio: the Honda 0 – that’s a zero – SUV, the Honda 0 Saloon and the Acura RSX. Now, all three are cancelled for production or sale in North America. They join other U.S. models that were cut, including those that made it to production, such as the Ford F-150 Lightning pickup and those halted before mass production, such as the all-electric Ram 1500 pickup.

It’s not clear what Honda’s decision means for the Honda-LG battery plant that began production late last year in Jeffersonville, Ohio. That plant, which has about 600 employees, was going to provide batteries for the RSX and other models. “As our company assesses the impact of Honda’s announcement on our operations, we are in discussions with our parent companies regarding related future business opportunities that align with the technology and expertise we have developed,” says Caroline Ramsey, a spokeswoman for the battery plant, in an email.

Honda’s other plants in the state will use the capacity that was slated for EVs to produce gasoline models, including gas-electric hybrids.

The company has struggled with its EV strategy over the last decade. Its greatest success has been the Honda Prologue SUV, introduced in 2024, which is part of a partnership with General Motors and shares components with the Chevrolet Blazer.

The now-scrapped models, headlined by the Honda 0 series, were part of the company’s attempt to signal a new beginning, with fresh designs and new technology.

There’s just so much uncertainty broadly in the U.S. economy right now.

— Hannah Hess, director of energy and climate practice at Rhodium

Honda is a major reason Ohio is a leader in automobile manufacturing employment, trailing only Michigan and Indiana. These next EVs were going to be Honda’s statement about how it intended to compete in the market of the near future.

Now, Honda and other automakers in the U.S. market are left to watch and wait.

Rhodium Group, a research firm, issued a report this week that gives a sense of the scale of investment that took place in recent years and the cancellation of some of that investment.

In 2025, companies said they were cancelling US$22 billion in previously announced EV or battery manufacturing projects in the United States, the report said. This exceeded the $17 billion in new EV or battery manufacturing announcements made last year.

To get a better sense of what’s happening, I looked at the indispensable database of project announcements from Rhodium and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. It shows a spike in investment in 2022, the year President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, a law with incentives for EV manufacturing and purchases. Companies announced $80 billion in U.S. investment that year, and another $47 billion in 2023.

About half of last year’s cancellations by dollar value, or $11 billion, involved projects announced in 2022. The largest was a $4.3-billion EV manufacturing project from General Motors in Orion, Michigan. That’s a lot of investment going up in smoke, but I also urge observers to note that most of those 2022 projects are still active, either operational or under construction.

What we don’t know is if the cancellations to date are just the start of a larger wave. “The outlook looks cloudier than it did a year ago,” says Hannah Hess, director of Rhodium’s energy and climate practice. The next steps, she says, will be determined by many factors, including consumer demand for EVs and automakers’ assessment of where the market is heading. “There’s just so much uncertainty broadly in the U.S. economy right now.”

One thing the Rhodium report doesn’t capture are layoffs at plants that remain open, and that’s something else to watch.

SK On, the South Korean battery manufacturer, said last week that it is laying off 958 people at a plant in Commerce, Georgia, that had 2,566 workers before the reduction. The company cited a decline in demand for EV batteries.

Some jobs and investment could come back. The United States could reassert itself as a place where the cars of the future are built.

But gyrations in policies have a cumulative effect, reducing confidence in the staying power of any one policy. The next time a U.S. president says it’s time to invest, automakers are likely going to react more carefully.

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Corporate Knights’ annual Global 100 ranking adds more grist to that mill. Of the nine automakers on this year’s list, six are based in China: XPeng (20), Li Auto (29), Nio (30), Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology (43), Seres (63) and Yadea (60), which mainly makes electric two-wheelers. Tesla is a U.S. company, but about half of its production is in China, and BorgWarner, headquartered in Michigan, also has plants in China. A significant number of Western automakers use Chinese batteries in their EVs, too.

But China’s EV market can be hard to parse. In November, The Atlantic published an explosive article contradicting the main narrative around the growth of its industry and purporting that “China’s EV Market Is Imploding.” In the article, Beijing-based writer Michael Schuman points to the pervasive practice of selling zero-mileage “used” cars and claims that the Chinese Communist Party artificially keeps struggling manufacturers afloat.

China, with its cheap electric cars, is teaching Western automakers a lesson, as they build unaffordable, large, luxurious electric models.

– Colin Pratte, transportation researcher, IRIS

In the West, popular perception varies widely, suggesting the distorting effects of online misinformation and a lack of independent data. Chinese cars are thought to be more technologically advanced than their Western counterparts, but their production is considered dirtier than in Europe or North America because of coal-heavy electricity and pollution from upstream processes like mining and mineral processing. But Colin Pratte, a transportation researcher at the Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques in Quebec, suspects that the latter perception is influenced more by racism than reliable data and that steep tariffs on China’s EVs in Canada and the United States reflect pure protectionism, not high ecological standards.

A big lead

China isn’t the only country propping up its automotive sector, argues Thomas Hundal, a Toronto-based automotive journalist: “To some extent, subsidies are offered everywhere, and people exploit them.” That’s a problem that’s not unique to China, or to EVs, he says, adding that pre-registration, or listing new cars as used, has been a practice in Europe for ages.

According to Reuters, the top 10 countries buying China’s EVs are Mexico, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Belgium, Germany, Australia, Indonesia, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

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China’s EV industry is more technologically advanced than the West in two main areas, Hundal says. The first is its battery supply chain: “They can produce huge numbers at low cost compared to North America. China is also years ahead of the Western manufacturers in terms of chemistry, with more impressive discharge rates and higher energy density.” China also has a big lead in charging; their stations are substantially more powerful than North America’s, according to Hundal. Broadly, China has been working on its EV market “in a larger and more serious capacity than the West has,” and for longer.

“China, with its cheap electric cars, is teaching Western automakers a lesson, as they build unaffordable, large, luxurious electric models,” Pratte says. China’s small, inexpensive cars compete directly with the big electric SUVs that Western automakers are pushing with the backing of their own governments. If governments really wanted to reduce greenhouse gases by electrifying transportation, they would welcome cheap Chinese EVs with open arms, Pratte says.

Following a pattern

As few as 15 of the 129 Chinese EV brands are predicted to achieve financial viability by 2030, according to the financial advisory firm AlixPartners. Looking at the stiff competition and excess manufacturing capacity in China’s EV sector, Hundal expects to see major upheaval. “If we go back 100 to 120 years, there were thousands of manufacturers in Canada and hundreds in [the United States]; some survived but most didn’t. I expect that to be the sort of trajectory we will see in China,” he says.

The 2026 Global 100 list puts speed in the spotlight

The threat posed by companies like Nio, Li Auto and XPeng is reminiscent of Toyota’s introduction to the West, when it rapidly gained market share by focusing on affordability and fuel efficiency. Western carmakers at the time emphasized size, power and styling, but Toyota’s big challenge pushed them to overhaul their manufacturing processes and improve their quality and durability. Chinese automakers could force a similar overhaul today by exposing weaknesses in the Western firms. However, its disruptive potential must first overcome the nationalist and protectionist tendencies that have long been the hallmarks of the auto industry.

Ophélie Dénommée-Marchand is a Quebec-based independent journalist with a focus on fact-checking and investigation. She’s also an encyclopedist for the Canadian Encyclopedia.

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But a Quebec green-tech investor thinks he can break the mould and go mainstream.

This winter, François Boutin-Dufresne, a serial entrepreneur based in Montreal, is launching ShareCharge, an app that connects drivers with private EV chargers. In doing so, he hopes to solve the most pernicious challenge limiting EV adoption: range anxiety.

A 2024 J.D. Power study found that nearly three-quarters of Canadians described themselves as unlikely to buy an EV, with most citing limited range as the main obstacle. Surveys in Quebec, the leader in Canada when it comes to EV adoption, show that two-thirds of respondents also felt the charging network needs expansion, especially in rural areas, although data suggest range anxiety decreases over time for EV owners. In Quebec, some 80% of charging is done at home, making the jurisdiction a prime spot for ShareCharge’s proposition.

Boutin-Dufresne, a former economist for the Government of Canada and the International Monetary Fund, draws inspiration from Uber. ShareCharge would allow users to adjust prices according to supply and demand, with rates fluctuating up or down. For example, more expensive and efficient charging equipment would cost more to rent. He predicts that increased demand during holidays or major events will create hot spots where people can earn more from their chargers. Remote locations will also enable rural owners to charge a premium.

Boutin-Dufresne believes that civil society cannot sit by and wait for the government to build out the necessary EV infrastructure. “People need to take matters into their own hands,” he says.

Filling the infrastructure gap

Quebec launched Canada’s first public charging network for electric vehicles in 2011, before the technology really took off, and now has around 6,500 public stations in Montreal and nearly 30,000 across the province.

But its reach has remained too limited, Boutin-Dufresne argues. The impetus for ShareCharge came from his own struggles as an EV owner. He was tired of what he calls EV charging deserts where he has to travel three kilometres or more to replenish his car.

Boutin-Dufresne’s brash, fast-talking demeanour is reflected in his company. Prior to its planned official rollout in December, ShareCharge already purports to be “the world’s largest EV charging network” on its website, even though it had only 150 registered providers. But Boutin-Dufresne believes the network can quickly attract 10% of Quebec EV drivers and owners of home-charging stations, representing 40,000 new places to power up an EV.

New supply-chain ‘passports’ pave the way for more recycling of EV batteries

“Chargers on the side of the road cost the city of Montreal $50,000 each; ours cost the government nothing to improve access,” Boutin-Dufresne says.

ShareCharge is planning to expand across North America, though Quebec’s abundant, low-cost hydroelectricity will make the service more affordable there than in most other regions. Boutin-Dufresne is betting that Quebec’s fierce winters increase the appeal for drivers to have access to a large private network of EV chargers.

He aims to develop partnerships with Communauto, Quebec’s popular car-sharing service, and other vehicle rental companies. He believes the charging stations will attract Uber drivers, as well as more people who are not property owners, do not have private charging stations, and park their EVs on the street.

Lack of charging stations in high-rise buildings is cutting off access to EVs

But users who want to earn passive income from their EV chargers also have to shoulder the risk of things going wrong. ShareCharge takes care of quality control and validation for those who wish to rent out their charging stations, and individuals rely on the five-star rating system to avoid renting to users with undesirable behaviour, as is done on Uber or Airbnb. The company does not, however, cover risks that may arise from its use. If someone’s charging station is located in their garage and a customer’s car catches fire, it is up to the owner of the charging station to assume the risk.

Public versus private

The company’s plans also raise questions about government subsidies for private chargers. “It’s a public policy failure that the government, which invested massively in this infrastructure, did not think ahead and come up with this idea themselves,” says Thomas Hundal, an automotive journalist in Toronto.

Critics argue that the public sector should retain control of the charging economy to make it more accessible. “Across the world, governments are following the same modus operandi: they invest public funds to build a basic charging infrastructure so that, in a second phase, it becomes attractive for the private sector,” says Colin Pratte, a transport researcher at the Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques, a Quebec-based non-profit. He argues that instead of ceding the race for better charging infrastructure to private companies that “parasitize the sharing economy under the guise of enabling it,” it would be better to optimize public networks and keep prices low. Pratte believes EV charging is headed toward a repeat of the mistakes that led to the oil shock, where gas prices became unaffordable.

The Quebec government is preparing to invest nearly a billion dollars in its EV transition by 2028. According to its 2023 projections, there will be two million EV drivers in the province by 2030, though EV sales have been losing momentum since late 2024.

Ophélie Dénommée-Marchand is a Quebec-based independent journalist with a focus on fact-checking and investigation. She’s also an encyclopedist for the Canadian Encyclopedia.

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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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The transition from gas to zero-emission vehicles has hit some speed bumps lately. Only three years ago, automakers and governments alike pledged significant capital investment into retooling manufacturing sites, upskilling auto workers and securing supply chains, to support the gradual replacement of conventional cars with battery-run vehicles.

To safeguard Canada’s nascent electric vehicle industry, the federal government imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs in October 2024, matching the 100% tariffs under U.S. president Joe Biden that took effect a month earlier.

President Trump’s arrival at the White House has since upended the economic landscape. The Trump administration has launched a trade war on Canada that includes a 25% tariff on automobiles, light trucks and auto parts that fail to meet the regulatory requirements under the trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico (CUSMA).

The U.S. import taxes coincide with Canadian federal requirements to produce more electric vehicles. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau oversaw the adoption of new rules that required that 20% of total passenger car sales be electric by 2026. Between the import tariffs and the looming deadline to supply more EVs, legacy automakers such as General Motors, Ford and Stellantis pushed back, arguing that the federal mandate is simply not feasible.

“With EV sales falling for five months in a row . . . there is no pathway to meeting the government mandated target,” Brian Kingston, president and chief executive of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, argued in The Globe and Mail, adding that “Canadians are clearly not ready for widespread EV adoption.”

Responding to industry pressure, Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended the 2026 EV sales target, saying that automakers have “got enough on their plate.”

The carmakers want the free market when it suits them, but they don’t want the free market when it doesn’t suit them.

– Daniel Breton, CEO, Electric Mobility Canada,

Indeed, new registrations for battery-electric vehicles dropped by 39.2% in the second quarter of 2025, according to Statistics Canada. But Joanna Kyriazis with Clean Energy Canada takes issue with the cause of plummeting sales – which, she notes, is occurring only in Canada as EV purchases continue to climb upward in much of the rest of the world.

“Our polling from this year shows that 45% of Canadians still lean towards an electric vehicle for their next purchase,” Kyriazis counters, adding that the percentage rises to 69% in metro Vancouver. “The interest is there, but upfront cost remains a top barrier. The pause in provincial and federal buyer incentives means buyers are waiting on the sidelines to see if those programs are coming back.”

Despite the recent spate of automakers announcing delays and cancellations of EV rollouts, the tariff on Chinese-made EVs remains in place. The situation has turned into a political tug-of-war: OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) as well as Ontario Premier Doug Ford say that the tariff barrier is still needed. Others, such as Daniel Breton, president and CEO of Electric Mobility Canada, disagree. “We’ve been against the 100% tariff from the get-go. [Canada] imposed the tariff to play nice with the U.S. But here we are a year later and playing nice hasn’t given us any advantages.”

The TD report makes the case that blocking electric cars made outside of North America from the Canadian market may not, in fact, be in anyone’s interests.

The tariff wars

Globally, sales of battery-electric cars are surging. Brazil, which has been open to Chinese imports, has seen EV sales soar more than 500% between 2022 and 2024, and Chinese automaker BYD has established a significant presence in the Brazilian market.

Bloomberg reports that Brazil plans to reintroduce import taxes at rates ranging from 10% to 35% by June 2026 to encourage domestic investment. Subsequently, Chinese carmakers BYD, GAC and Great Wall Motor are all setting up local manufacturing plants with the promise of job creation and economic growth.

For its decision to block Chinese entrants, Canada has been hit with a 76% tariff on Canadian canola seed imports and a 100% tariff on canola oil, meal and peas. China also put a 25% tariff on certain Canadian pork, fish and seafood products.

Kyriazis points out that Canadians bear the cost in other ways as the two countries ratchet up import taxes. “We are walling off our car market so that it’s no longer competitive. Canada has an EV affordability problem. We found 20 EV models available today in the EU market for less than $40,000 Canadian, only one of which can be bought here.”

Kyriazis is not alone in this observation. Writing for The Conversation, Addisu Lashitew of McMaster University says that a freer trade regime with China would substantially broaden the range of affordable EVs available to Canadians, “who are currently limited to U.S. brands averaging more than US$55,000. By contrast, Chinese manufacturers offer numerous models priced near US$25,000, a factor that would likely spur a substantial increase in EV adoption.”

Building bridges instead of barriers

“This 100% tariff was meant to buy our domestic auto sector time to ramp up and get more competitive. Instead, we’ve seen many EV-related investments and production plans being delayed or cancelled. We’ve seen carmakers backtrack on their EV-related goals,” Kyriazis says.

According to the TD assessment, blocking entrance of EVs from China has curtailed domestic adoption of the most advanced battery technology on the market, noting that Chinese OEMs are miles ahead of everyone else in offering affordable vehicles that, in some cases, are cheaper than comparable models running on internal combustion engines.

Thanks to China’s formidable head start in EV production, Chinese auto manufacturers like BYD, SAIC and Geely produced 70% of the electric cars sold globally in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. Automakers in the United States produced just 5%. The more electric vehicles that Chinese companies make, TD economists argue, the more difficult it will be for carmakers in North America to catch up.

Moreover, Canada’s protectionist policies may be encouraging a sense of complacency – or worse. “In 2019, the International Energy Agency published a report that placed Canada dead last in the world for fuel efficiency of its light-duty vehicle fleet and GHG emissions per kilometre driven,” Breton says. “This means that we’re driving gas guzzlers as a country. So when I hear that some carmakers want us to keep driving gas guzzlers by aligning with the U.S., to me this is completely stunning.”

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Given the gap in EV technology and heightened risk of falling too far behind, the TD report recommends that partnerships between Canadian and Chinese car companies could be formed so that Canada can improve its EV ecosystem. Simultaneously, joint ventures with Chinese automakers would likely help Canada return its EV adoption rate to an upward trajectory by overcoming cost concerns and range anxiety.

Canadians appear to support the prospect of opening the market to Chinese entrants. In a recent Nanos Research survey with CTV News, 62% of respondents said they either support or somewhat support removing the 100% tax on Chinese-made EVs.

Says Breton, “The carmakers want the free market when it suits them, but they don’t want the free market when it doesn’t suit them. And to me, the China conversation is about that as well.”

Victoria Foote is a writer and editor who specializes in clean energy and climate.

The post Economists say Ottawa should rethink tariffs on Chinese EVs appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The reason that discount airlines tend to rank higher is hard to celebrate, even for the most climate-conscious travellers. While other factors contribute meaningfully to reducing emissions, low-cost airlines perform best because they tend to squeeze more people onto their planes.

Cirium’s analysis shows that increasing the number of passengers is currently the number-one way to decrease the carbon intensity of flying. Densely packed planes have lower per-passenger carbon emissions for the same reason that carpooling is a climate solution. By the same token, flying business class triples the carbon intensity of plane travel compared to economy seats.

“Airlines now face a genuine tension between passenger comfort and environmental performance,” Mike Malik, Cirium’s chief marketing officer, said at a presentation for journalists.

Closer quarters aren’t the only reason budget airlines perform better on emissions intensity. Low-cost carriers also tend to use newer airplanes with better fuel efficiency. “Seat density and fleet age matter more than almost any other factor airlines can control,” Malik wrote in the report.

“Because they want to be efficient, they renew their fleets more often,” says Olivier Paillot, general manager for the Americas at OpenAirlines, a software company that specializes in fuel savings. “OpenAirlines has 80 airlines using our solution, and of those, the low-cost airlines are by far the most efficient.”

The intricate path to emissions reductions

To calculate carbon intensity, Cirium uses a metric called “available seat kilometres” (ASK), which multiplies the number of available seats by the distance travelled. By this measurement, Wizz Air of Hungary takes top spot in the global ranking with 53.9 grams of carbon dioxide per ASK. Frontier Airlines in the United States came second, followed by Pegasus in Turkey.

Looking only at the world largest airlines, Ireland’s Ryanair was number one, with an ASK of 63. Southwest Airlines and Delta Airlines were second and third in this category, at 68.9 and 74.4 respectively.

Canada’s most carbon-efficient carrier is Flair Airlines with an ASK of 55.5. WestJet’s is 65.4, and Air Canada’s is 68.1.

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Cirium uses a modelling tool called Emerald Sky to calculate airline emissions, which draws on a wide variety of data about aircraft design, passenger and cargo loads, flight operations and more. Emerald Sky is accredited by the Rocky Mountain Institute under the Pegasus Guidelines, an emissions measurement and reporting standard for the aviation sector. The comparisons are validated for use by banks and financiers for net-zero-aligned investing strategies.

There are other ways that airlines can effectively bring down their emissions, such as by making subtle adjustments to flight operations. OpenAirlines shows airlines how to find small efficiencies that together add up to larger savings, such as by adjusting how the plane ascends and descends, turning off one engine after the plane has landed, removing magazines and screens to eliminate weight, and more. Altogether, Paillot says the company can help airlines achieve up to a 5% reduction in fuel consumption.

Operational efficiencies are the fastest and easiest to deploy, Paillot says: “The fuel that’s saved, it’s saved today.”

Notably, the use of sustainable aviation fuels, or SAFs, was not a distinguishing factor in the Cirium ranking, because they currently account for only 0.53% of fuel demand. Even so, the International Air Transport Association’s plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions relies heavily on SAFs. According to the resolution passed in 2021, advanced biofuels and other alternative fuels are supposed to contribute 65% of the reductions in emissions by 2050.

Mark Mann is the associate editor at Corporate Knights. He is based in Montreal.

The post The secret to lowering airline emissions? Less leg room appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Aviation is responsible for 13.9% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions from transport and 2.5% of emissions from all human activity. Between 2000 and 2019, emissions from the aviation sector have risen faster than those from rail, road or shipping – in 2024 alone, GHGs jumped by 5% – while efforts to decarbonize the aviation industry have made little progress.

Recently, however, there have been indications that this may change. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) set a target for international aviation to be 5% less carbon-intensive by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. This will primarily be through the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), which are typically made from used cooking oil and agricultural waste and mitigate the lion’s share of emissions produced by conventional jet fuel. Canada’s Aviation Climate Action Plan targets net-zero emissions for the aviation industry by 2050 and a goal of 10% use of low-emission aviation fuel by 2030.

Given the sluggish pace at which airlines are replacing jet fuel with SAFs, not to mention the projected growth of air travel, reaching these milestones appears unlikely. Passenger air travel is expected to double by 2050. “Even the most ambitious jurisdictions are falling short of tracking to net-zero,” says Nikita Pavlenko, director of aviation and fuels at the International Council on Clean Transportation’s Washington, D.C., office. “In aviation, there are no silver bullets to decarbonization. In the auto sector, there’s electrification. In the power sector, there’s renewables. In the aviation sector, there are not the same kind of easy answers.”

Others have struck a more hopeful note. Geoff Tauvette, executive director of the Canadian Council for Sustainable Aviation Fuels (C-SAF), a non-profit representing more than 100 industry members, writes in an email that “Canada has all the right ingredients from start to finish to build a leading and made-in-Canada SAF production market.”

While developing a healthy market for SAFs will require a long-term regulatory framework and investment strategy, the smart money is on cleaner fuels, more than initiatives to increase efficiencies, to drive aviation decarbonization in the decades ahead.

Air travel takes off

Between 2013 and 2019, global demand for air travel increased by 50%, jumping another 10% in 2024 – 4% above pre-pandemic levels, an all-time high, according to figures released by IATA in January. IATA expects air travel to climb 6% this year, causing another surge in emissions.

In addition to carbon dioxide, airplanes emit pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and soot and form heat-trapping contrails. Scientists estimate that the net warming effect of these may be up to three times as great as the warming caused by the carbon dioxide emitted.

To realize the 2030 target, airlines would need to boost consumption of SAFs more than 30-fold. Some fear, however, that even if airlines replace 10% of their fuel with low-carbon alternatives by the end of the decade, the climate benefits would be erased by the anticipated growth in the aviation business.

Bending the curve

Reducing the carbon footprint of the aviation sector is one of the most difficult pieces of the energy transition, largely because it requires multiple solutions and the technology required is not yet available at scale. Writing in Nature, a science publication, researchers point out that zero-emission aviation demands a holistic approach, which includes increasing efficiencies in propulsion systems, making improvements to aircraft design and using low-carbon materials.

Carbon reductions in the production of conventional fuel, electrifying ground operations and route planning designed to minimize stopovers all represent additional levers to lighten aviation’s climate impact.

While such efforts are worthwhile, the resulting emission reductions are marginal. Numerous experts have concluded that replacing diesel with SAFs is the most viable near-term pathway for meaningful decarbonization. SAFs are liquid fuels derived from sustainable sources, versus conventional jet fuel that comes from crude oil. The cleaner fuels can mitigate as much as 80% of carbon dioxide in life-cycle emissions compared to conventional fuel. Moreover, “SAF is appealing because you can use it in existing aircraft,” Pavlenko says, noting that the European Union is leading the pack in the deployment of sustainable fuels.

Says Tauvette in an email, “It is critical that government and industry work together to properly assess the impacts and develop an SAF policy that helps reduce actual aviation emissions, supports creating value from Canadian feedstocks by producing SAF in Canada and enhances the competitiveness of the sector.”

A flight path to net-zero

The European Union aims for a 55% reduction in aviation emissions by 2030 and net-zero by 2050, leveraging SAFs and emission trading systems. China plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, focusing on green airports and SAFs. Japan and the United Kingdom also target net-zero by 2050 and have drafted strategies that emphasize sustainable fuel, hydrogen-powered aircraft, and optimized air traffic management.

In Canada, British Columbia became the first jurisdiction in North America to require the use of SAFs in 2023, when the province released its revised low-carbon-fuels program.

The regulations now require renewable fuel to comprise at least 1% of jet fuel starting in 2028, increasing to 2% in 2029 and 3% in 2030 and subsequent compliance periods. The regulations also require a carbon-intensity reduction for conventional jet fuel. (The federal Clean Fuel Regulations set life-cycle carbon-intensity-reduction requirements for gasoline and diesel but does not have a reduction requirement for jet fuel.)

Currently, the high cost of low-emission aviation fuels – often far exceeding that of conventional jet fuels – has prevented widespread adoption. “The reality is that there is going to be a significant cost premium for SAF in the foreseeable future. It’s just going to be more expensive than fossil fuel,” Pavlenko says.

In its 2023 road map, C-SAF put forward an optimistic target of one billion litres of SAF production by 2030. Uptake would result in a 50% reduction, or more, in life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions relative to fossil fuel, which translates into the elimination of approximately 1.6 million tonnes of GHG emissions.

Earlier this year, Boeing announced that it will invest $17.48 million to promote the production of SAF in Canada, an encouraging signal that some investors see a long-term future for decarbonization. “Just getting a handful of commercial scale projects built to produce those second-generation technologies comprises a significant step forward for the industry and would help achieve some of those longer-term targets,” Pavelenko says. Anything less, and “we’re going to fail to achieve our 2050 goals.”

Victoria Foote is a writer and editor who specializes in clean energy and climate.

The post As air travel booms, can the aviation industry decarbonize for real? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

A pillar of the EU economy, the automotive sector’s value chain accounts for more than 13 million direct and indirect jobs and 7% of the EU’s gross domestic product. As recently as 2019, the EU dominated the global auto market. 

Even so, the sector has lost some of its competitiveness, declining by 13 percentage points in market share since 2017. At the same time, Europe’s automakers are investing big in the electrification of their products as China’s low-cost, battery-powered vehicles gain a foothold in the European market. 

Replacing internal-combustion cars with battery-electric ones is essential to fighting climate change. But the transition is also a challenge for automakers facing down a possible slide in demand due to the Trump administration’s barrage of auto-related tariffs. 

“Social leasing,” as the strategy is often called, could be the key to unlocking a policy hat trick by providing low-income or otherwise marginalized consumers with access to zero-emission cars, creating demand certainty for automakers producing EVs, and reducing the carbon imprint of one of the planet’s most polluting sectors. 

Recent initiatives show big demand for social leasing

Simply put, social leasing schemes offer electric vehicles to low- and middle-income households at subsidized lease rates while creating new markets for the automotive industry by ensuring that the vehicles leased are made domestically. 

According to Transport & Environment, an advocacy organization for clean transportation and energy, millions of Europeans, particularly those living in rural areas, are car-dependent and vulnerable to volatile fuel prices. People driving older, less efficient gas cars are hit especially hard when fuel prices spike. 

France initiated a social leasing program that ran for less than two months at the beginning of 2024. The subsidy targeted commuters, and eligibility was based on income and the number of individuals in a household. The brevity of the program stemmed not from failure but from its success. Some 90,000 applications were submitted, out of which 50,000 orders of battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) were approved. It was so popular that funds were exhausted within six weeks of the program’s launch.

Washington State in the United States ran a similar program last year through its EV Instant Rebate Program. As in France, uptake was enthusiastic. More than 4,000 residents took advantage of the leasing option. Over the course of three months in 2024, Washington’s Department of Commerce offered $45 million (all figues in U.S. dollars) in rebates to lower-income residents to help them buy or lease zero-emission vehicles. Eligible recipients could receive $9,000 to lease a new EV for three years, $5,000 to buy a new EV, or $2,500 to buy or lease a used EV.

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Ryan Bird, a director at Energy Solutions, which played a central role in implementing the Washington rebate initiative, says that “the goal was really focused on accelerating equitable adoption of EVs. We wanted a program design that would lower as many barriers as possible.”

The funding was dispersed to 6,200 Washingtonians, and the average rebate was $7,400. Based on the Commerce Department’s calculations, the switch from gas to electric vehicles reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 16,783 metric tons and nitrogen oxides by approximately 5,700 kilograms. The department estimated that more than $18 million was saved in avoided costs associated with air pollutants.

Car dealers saw a welcome bounce in sales during the program’s short life. EV sales rose by 30% for an annual increase of 7% over the prior year. “We’re very pleased with the program’s reception and success,” says Amelia Lamb, a spokesperson with the Department of Commerce, via email. “The funds ran out months before we thought they would, which shows that the demand is clearly there for clean transportation and EVs, if people can get help with starting costs.”

Questions raised over who benefits from social leasing

An investigation by PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service) into the Washington rebate program found that the initiative was not entirely trouble-free. The Washington effort struggled to meet its targeted number of vulnerable populations and overburdened communities, according to the PBS account, and some beneficiaries failed to meet the low-income criteria.

Nevertheless, preliminary results from an audit show that more than 90% of recipients were genuinely eligible for the program, which was conducted on a self-reporting assessment system.

Bird notes that there was “incredibly high demand at every incentive level, and particularly among low-income customers,” adding that uptake was “a huge validation of the market potential for EVs throughout the entire market. EVs are not just for rich people; everyone wants to have an EV. Everyone wants to reduce their transportation emissions, wants to have clean air.”

Another knock on the program was that it did not foster long-term access to an electric vehicle among the program recipients. Because the rebate’s largest incentive of $9,000 could be used only to lease a new EV, compared to $5,000 to purchase one, rebates made leasing a more affordable option. But after three years the lease would expire, and the car had to be either purchased or returned.

Bird counters that when vehicles are not purchased by the customer once the lease has ended, the EVs enter the secondary market. “There’s a lot of really great data out there that shows that more vehicles on the secondary market are going to lower the prices for everyone,” he adds. (A fact sheet put out by the Commerce Department notes that vehicles coming off leases are a key source of used car inventory.)

EU drives forward with lease subsidies, while U.S. stalls

In an op-ed published in Euronews, Krzysztof Bolesta, Poland’s deputy minister of environment, and Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, a member of the European Parliament, argue that, over a 10-year period, a social leasing scheme could benefit up to 10 million European families while also increasing the automotive sector’s competitiveness. Furthermore, such a program would stimulate the market for used battery-electric cars. 

By pooling demand among member states, the authors note, as many as one million EVs could be sold in the EU every year for the next decade. The surge in volume would cause unit costs to go down, making the social leasing schemes cheaper.

But while enthusiasm grows in Europe, the future of Washington’s EV rebate program is murky, despite its success as measured by every applicable metric. “It’s an unfortunate situation,” Bird says. “Like other states, Washington is facing a challenging budget situation. A lot of actions at the federal level are creating a lot of chaos for state legislatures and the economy at state level.” 

Bird reports that funding for the rebate effort has been reallocated and there are currently no plans to relaunch the program. “The actions taken by the federal government right now are only increasing barriers to EV adoption, especially for low-income residents. We’ll have to wait and see what’s next. We’re certainly very proud of our partnership with Department of Commerce. It’s just been a really exciting program to be a part of.”

Victoria Foote is a writer and editor who specializes in clean energy and climate.

The post How subsidized leasing can drive EV adoption appeared first on Corporate Knights.