The part these automotive executives are conveniently not mentioning is that the EV mandate already allows auto manufacturers to get out of meeting the quotas if they build out charging infrastructure instead. They can get credits for building charging stations to go against current and future years where they miss their commitments.

AFAIK, in Canada there is currently only one auto manufacturer that is building out charging capacity, and that’s Tesla (who don’t even need that credit, as they only make EVs anyway!).

The Carney Government needs to tell these automakers that they need to get shovels in the ground and start building out that infrastructure. That will be good for Canadian jobs, and will increase the likelihood their customers will choose an EV in the future. The two Provinces where EV charging is easy and prevalent (BC and Quebec) already have the most EVs on the road (as a proportion of all vehicles) out of all the Provinces — so we know building more charging capacity leads to more sales. I’m no fan of Tesla (I drive a Hyundai IONIQ 5), but they realized early on they couldn’t just wait for others to build out charging capacity for them if they wanted to sell EVs — the other North American auto manufacturers need to realize that and get on to building out that capacity. Then they’ll sell cars, and then they’ll meet the mandates.

Shoves in ground, CEOs. And do us a favour and buy Canadian — we have several EVSE manufacturers in Canada making some really good kit to choose from.