Toronto, Ontario – Liberal government announces zero-emission vehicles will be the minority governments focus during this session of parliament. BMW is getting ready for seven million electrified vehicles on the road by 2030, and California Governor Gavin Newsom has set the goal of 100 percent zero-emissions by 2045.
Liberal promises
On September 23 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced during the speech from the throne that zero-emissions vehicles will be his government’s focus during this session of parliament.
During the speech, the Liberals reiterated their desire to “make zero-emission vehicles more affordable toward the age of electrification.”
However, the federal government has made similar promises in the past.
Ottawa committed $130 million in the 2019 federal budget for EV infrastructure. Although in 2017, the Liberals said they would be “broadly investing” $21.9 billion in green infrastructure. The investment was to help produce electric vehicle charging stations and electricity grid interconnections.
The speech came just a day after Ford Motor Co. and Unifor reached a tentative three-year collective bargaining contract, which includes $1.8 billion for the Oakville, Ont., plant to assemble five electric vehicles and batteries.
The Sunday before the Ford and Unifor reached an agreement, the federal government, reported by the star, will kick in $500 million to help Ford retool their Oakville plant—however neither party has confirmed this.
Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier said he wants to see more electric-battery production done in Ontario.
During the throne speech, the Liberals also promised to launch a new fund to attract investments in making zero-emissions products and cut the corporate tax rate in half.
Currently, the gross federal tax rate in Canada is 15 per cent.
Boost at BMW
BMW is setting their sights high for the future as they announced their plan to have more than seven million electrified vehicles on the road by 2030, according to a press release from August.
BMW reports to have sold more than 500,000 electrified vehicles in 2019 and see that number continuing to rise over the next decade. The automakers are hoping to have about two-thirds of the seven million vehicles be fully electric variants.
They additionally reported that about 13.3 percent of their new vehicle registrations were issued to an electrified BMW model. “This corresponds to 1.5-fold of the average share of all brands, which is around 8 percent. The company expects this figure to rise to a quarter by 2021, to a third by 2025 and to 50 percent by 2030,” BMW said, citing IHS Market data from this summer.
By comparison, only about 3.3 percent of new BMW registrations in the U.S. were issued to electrified vehicles.
BMW said it is “following the ‘power of choice’ approach in order to take account of customer needs and legal requirements on the global automotive markets.”
The company is currently pointing focus toward its X3 model, which is BMW’s “first model available either with highly efficient petrol and diesel engines including 48-volt mild-hybrid technology, with a plug-in hybrid drive system or all-electric drive system.”
Go away, gas
As an effort to combat climate change, California Governor Gavin Newsom has set a goal for zero-emission energy sources for the state’s electricity by 2045.
The state’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions pledged to ban all sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. This order would not prevent Californians from owning and selling gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles on the used-vehicle market.
If Gov. Newsom’s executive order gets passed, California could be the first state in the country with such a ban, joining at least 15 other countries doing the same, such as France and Germany
White House spokesman Judd Deere called the move another example of “how extreme the left has become,” and concludes that “the lengths to which they will go to destroy jobs and raise costs on the consumer, is alarming.”
Gov. Newsom’s response to the White House argument, is that it’s “stale,” and frankly overused.
“We want to accelerate a trend you’re seeing all around the rest of the world. We have over 50 per cent of all the electricity produced and procured in California from non-carbon sources. We have a plan. We have a strategy.”
