So, this past week, Canada's environment minister, Steven Guilbeault unveiled plans that would ban the sale of new ICE vehicles in Canada by 2035. Of course, the usual suspects are whining about how "unrealistic" this is.
Here's the thing, this is a generational shift in technology, and one that has to happen for serious reasons. Anyone who lived through the 2023 fire season in Canada needs to understand that a big portion of that fire season had to do with climate change. Maybe it's too late to hold back the storm we face on that front, but that doesn't change the fundamental obligation we have to both ourselves and future generations to act.
Largely the complaints I hear are along the following lines:
1 - building electric vehicles is hard, and retooling manufacturing plants to the new technology is harder.
2 - the electricity grid isn't ready for everybody to start using electric cars - it would collapse if that happened tomorrow.
Both of these are to varying degrees true. The fact that something is hard doesn't mean that it isn't a valid goal. The automotive industry has been through this before. In the 1970s, the introduction of CAFE regulations meant that suddenly cars had to get fuel efficient. Guess what? It happened. A family sized car today has vastly better fuel consumption than a lot of the "economy" cars of the 1970s.
Did this happen overnight? Nope. Did it nearly kill the domestic automakers? Yes. But by the mid-1980s, they were finally starting to figure it out. Japan was vastly ahead of them by that point, but that's another story.
What did the CAFE standards and other related standards of the 1970s do? They birthed the development of a range of technologies - some of which succeeded and survived, others died out. Carburation was replaced by fuel injection; early pollution control was almost entirely vacuum driven, that got augmented by electronic controls; catalytic converters became mandatory; engines tightened up, and non-interference designs gave way to interference designs; transmissions evolved, and automatics eventually surpassed manual transmissions for efficiency.
Innovation sometimes requires government to set the direction. Capitalism is, at its core, fundamentally opposed to any change that affects profitability. If we let the automotive sector alone, we'd still be driving cars designed in the 1960s. Why? Because making them is easy and profitable.
So, when I hear "industry players" talking about how hard it is, or that it "can't be done". Yeah - everybody said that as Henry Ford set up his first production line too. Get down to the hard work of figuring out how you _can_ do it instead of telling us that it's hard.
The electricity grid needs a massive overhaul anyhow. In Alberta, 20 years ago, we built a ridiculous transmission line to sell "surplus" production into the US market. We (rate payers) are still paying for that in spite of it never having been needed. You were willing to have us pay for that because you understood how to use it for profit. Now the electricity grid needs to change dramatically so we can produce fewer emissions for transportation. I don't see a problem here.
Again, there are a myriad of technologies that need to be considered - perhaps every roof should have solar added to it. "Oh, but micro generation is hard say the megalith generating companies" - because they don't know how to profit from it. There are many possible solutions, and likely the real answer is a catch bag of multiple solutions put together.
Engineers love solving problems - this objective creates a whole lot of problems to be solved. The starter has fired the starting pistol. Why are you standing around quibbling about how "difficult" it is?
The blunt reality is that energy transition is happening whether you, the current automotive world, or the oil execs like it. Get on board and figure it out, or be prepared to become part of the past just as bespoke buggy makers and stable keepers are today.
I don't know that I expect the 2035 target to be hit, but one thing is certain: You will never hit the target if you don't try to.
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