No, not of the kayfabe goals that serve as rallying cries for his dwindling band of cultists. But rather success of the goals of our adversaries who helped put Trump in power and seem to primarily inform his policy.
(edit to answer the question below, as throttling has set in: China, obviously)
"Canada recorded 45,366 new zero-emission vehicle registrations in Q3 2025, accounting for 9.4 per cent of all new vehicle registrations in the quarter, according to the latest report from Statistics Canada."
"Of the total, 26,792 units were battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), while 18,574 were plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). "
So this would represent about 1/4 of current annual EV sales.
Its only the first 50K that get 6%, still pretty interesting as being physically so close to the US could cause people in the US to get their first look at Chinese cars.
Chinese car companies face far more ruthless competition than western ones so could end up making better cars as a result, imo.
There are over 100 brands in china selling electric cars
This is for about 50k cars a year that are priced about 35k CAD or less. It's a small amount compared to Canada's 2mil car sales a year, but it is quite significant in the message it is delivering to the world about Canada being willing to diversify their economy in the wake of hostility from conventional partners. It'll be quite interesting how normal partners react.
Others have covered the problems with this. However if you live in certain US cities that are close to Canada there may be a work around.
Actually move to somewhere across the border and live in Canada. As a US citizen living in Canada crossing into the US for visits, even fairly long ones, has little or no hassle and you can bring your Canadian car.
For example if you are in Detroit, move to Windsor, Ontario. Outside of peak congestion times it is 10-20 minutes to get to or from Detroit. That's quick enough that this could work out even if you do almost all of your activities outside of your home in Detroit.
BTW, there are also cities on the south border of the US where this works (with Mexico, not Canada!), but in many of those the cities on the Mexican side have somewhat of a crime problem so you would have to be a lot more cautious in picking a place to live there.
I (Canadian) drive a Polestar 2. Chinese manufactured car by Chinese company Geely (tho with Volvo DNA).
It's the best winter driving car I've ever owned. A set of Michelin X-Ices on it's amazing. I've been driving for 35 years and I've never driven something with better winter handling, including Subaru I used to own, etc.
I’m assuming this is downstream of trumps move in Venezuela? Canada suffers the most from US access to Venezuelan oil. On top of all the prior rhetoric and moves by his admin.
What concerns me is why does the west think China is trustworthy? Why are we all fighting one another? Culture is important. China knows this, and is unequivocally Chinese relative to the Europeans.
Good. Carney also remarked our relationship with China is now more predictable with our relationship with the states (wild shade coming from him) just to really make it clear to certain parties why this is happening.
Cheaper car options in this country will be nice, and I say this as a certified car hater who's yet to own one despite pushing 40.
You do realize that this will impact the car industry and jobs in Canada, right? Even a not-so-good deal with the usa would be much better that this overall!
The hallmark of patriotism is caring more about the surveillance from the other side of the lake than the bugs that are likely planted in your living room.
PRC just underpricing competitors is frankly retarded cope at this point, the reality is PRC industrial policy also simply permanently drives structural costs down. They're not spending billions in pork barrel jobs program that need reoccurring injections that rarely prioritize manufacturing efficiency. Pretty much every industry where PRC took the value-engineer hammer (initially with subsidies) has stayed cheap (eventually without subsidies). Like it's been 20 years, PRC competitiveness hallowed out a lot of western industrial base already, but their goods remains cheap. They're not subsidizing in perpetuity, their manufacturing is just stupid efficient and producers are willing to live on less margins because before even competing with western incumbents, they're competing with other Chinese competitors foremost and it just so happens survivors of PRC involution is by process of elimination, the most competitive.
I expect that this relatively small quota is a good faith opening the door to Chinese product but the main core goal will be deeper, comprehensive Chinese investment, such as securing BYD/NIO/etc car factories in Ontario.
The US government has really handled this poorly. Let's take one of our closest allies and push them into the arms of our biggest rival. All while helping boost that rival's total exports to record numbers. And boosting their universities to top positions in world rankings. Just brilliant, guys. "Make America Great Again" sure seems like it was intentionally tongue-in-cheek.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 96.2 ms ] threadNo, not of the kayfabe goals that serve as rallying cries for his dwindling band of cultists. But rather success of the goals of our adversaries who helped put Trump in power and seem to primarily inform his policy.
(edit to answer the question below, as throttling has set in: China, obviously)
Musk and crew know how to make cheap stuff - they've chosen high margin for Tesla however.
https://electricautonomy.ca/data-trackers/ev-sales-data/2025...
"Canada recorded 45,366 new zero-emission vehicle registrations in Q3 2025, accounting for 9.4 per cent of all new vehicle registrations in the quarter, according to the latest report from Statistics Canada."
"Of the total, 26,792 units were battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), while 18,574 were plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). "
So this would represent about 1/4 of current annual EV sales.
Chinese car companies face far more ruthless competition than western ones so could end up making better cars as a result, imo.
There are over 100 brands in china selling electric cars
e.g. https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/366599/chinese-evs-banned...
Actually move to somewhere across the border and live in Canada. As a US citizen living in Canada crossing into the US for visits, even fairly long ones, has little or no hassle and you can bring your Canadian car.
For example if you are in Detroit, move to Windsor, Ontario. Outside of peak congestion times it is 10-20 minutes to get to or from Detroit. That's quick enough that this could work out even if you do almost all of your activities outside of your home in Detroit.
BTW, there are also cities on the south border of the US where this works (with Mexico, not Canada!), but in many of those the cities on the Mexican side have somewhat of a crime problem so you would have to be a lot more cautious in picking a place to live there.
It's the best winter driving car I've ever owned. A set of Michelin X-Ices on it's amazing. I've been driving for 35 years and I've never driven something with better winter handling, including Subaru I used to own, etc.
What concerns me is why does the west think China is trustworthy? Why are we all fighting one another? Culture is important. China knows this, and is unequivocally Chinese relative to the Europeans.
Cheaper car options in this country will be nice, and I say this as a certified car hater who's yet to own one despite pushing 40.
BYD, for reference, got almost 30% of their 2024 income from the Chinese state (~$1.4b).
But this is always difficult to judge because most nations help local industry to some degree, and it can be quite difficult to compare.
Unfortunately, this is probably what is necessary at this point.
I'm not saying that's happening, just that it makes more sense than this chaotic self-destruction of the American empire.