Gas Powered Car, Truck Sales To Be Phased Out In Canada

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has outlined the federal government's plan to phase out the sale of gas-powered vehicles.

The Electric Vehicle Availability Standard aims to increase the supply of clean, zero-emission vehicles available to Canadians across the country, with a goal of 100 percent electric by 2035.

Interim targets of at least 20 percent of all sales by 2026, and at least 60 percent by 2030, the government says, will help Canada keep pace with the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and several other major economies which are all taking action to lower emissions and put more electric vehicles on the roads.

The Canadian marketplace for passenger vehicles is already experiencing a rapid shift toward zero-emission vehicles.

Demand for electric vehicles continues to increase year over year.

In the last quarter alone, one out of every eight new cars sold across Canada was a zero-emission vehicle.

In British Columbia, which already has similar standards in place, new electric vehicles now account for one in five sales.

The feds say more than $34 billion in new investments have been made by automotive and battery manufacturers since 2020 and are part of the shift to electric vehicle production and establishing a battery supply chain in Canada—which will create and maintain hundreds of thousands of jobs for Canadians “in a modern automotive supply chain.”