alt Hacker NewsCanada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%
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"Canada has agreed to allow an annual quota of 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the country at the tariff rate of just 6.1%"
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.
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.
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
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.
The battle is already lost as far as China owning the future markets for EVs and probably energy in general. It doesn't seem conceivable anybody else could match their scale, efficiency and technology advantages.
If you're going to fight economically, might as well do it in areas that aren't (a) a lost cause (b) going to hurt you economically since you'll have to settle for worse and more expensive products and (c) the alternative supplier's country isn't threatening to literally invade you and surrounding nations.
I wonder if this might even be below reasonable "subsidy-compensation" tariff levels.
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.
PRC slashed tariffs on Canadian ag in reciprocation, which unlike Canada on PRC EVs is uncapped. Meanwhile EV cap only raises based on PRC auto investments and plenty of ways US can throw cold water on that. Either way, this more bargaining chip for Canada vs USMCA renegotiation next year. Like it would be nice to get chinese EVs, or even shoring some of their manufacturing in CA to keep auto sector going, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it being geopolitically sustainable. Imagine US flexes, PRC pulls out, and early adopters get screwed.
What will be interesting are the restrictions on where the BYD vehicles are allowed to go.
e.g. https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/366599/chinese-evs-banned...
Up to 49,000 vehicles. To put that number in context, in 2024 Candians bought 1,918,861 vehicles of which 264,277 where zero-emissions.
The Mercosur-EU trade deal, the India-EU trade deal and this China-Canada trade deal. A pattern perhaps? A frantic search for reliable trade partnerships, or just random noise?
In case you're not aware, Chinese cars have the same or even better quality than US, European and Japanese cars. Their electric vehicles are cheap and high quality, it's really impressive.
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.
Could an American go up and buy one and drive it back? Any registration or insurance issues?
I guess we are still tarrifing solar panels though :(
Good. This could force Tesla's hand to make super cheap EV.
Musk and crew know how to make cheap stuff - they've chosen high margin for Tesla however.
Wouldn't them creating artificial scarcity be just another way to keep prices at the same level as tarrifs, but with the huge margins going to the private sector instead of the public?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCgSmlpC61A CBC "Q&A: Carney takes questions on China trade deal, EVs and security"
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.
This feels like a poor long-term play for a short term political win. Canada has a robust automotive supply industry to US auto manufacturers, and this industry could be in long-term risk in an attempt to hurt relations with freer, traditionally more conservative nations. It’s not a shock but it is always disappointing to see major political decisions made for the benefit of the next election cycle.
Globalization always wins
Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46647955
It makes more sense if you assume Trump is being paid off by China.
I'm not saying that's happening, just that it makes more sense than this chaotic self-destruction of the American empire.
Have they solved the cold weather vs lithium charge leak problem?
And whatever happened to that mysterious one-day $50 million in tesla rebates?
This new direction of "strategic autonomy", with Donald Trump in the white house just south of the border seems like a difficult hill to occupy.
Unfortunately, this is probably what is necessary at this point.
Tesla goodbye!
Our not-so-great leader's not-so-great trade policies continue to have not-so-great results for the US.
Are BYD cars really subsidized or is that a bunch of BS?
A few assorted thoughts:
- I'm still not over how great it feels to have confidence that Carney has a strong understanding of the economics of these political manouvers. Not only is he not a !@#$ing moron, he's a deeply experience economist more than he's a politician.
- Stratification of trading partners is nothing but good.
- This feels like safe toe-dip. Both sides have agreed to terms that are temporary, meaning there is no surprise rug-pull moment. Which is something the Americans are using more and more to keep everyone so !@#$ing wound up.
- This could be a long-term play for China: establish a presence in the North American auto market. The U.S. is right there. (Watch the Americans ban Chinese EVs from border crossing)
- Even better long-term play: establish North American manufacturing. How about Ontario builds Japanese and Chinese cars, turns CAMI and others into a Roshel or other military vehicle plant, and says good riddance to the American auto makers that have been rug-pulling long before Trump got into politics.
- A great opportunity to start improving trade lines for Canola. Possibly a trial balloon for other primary and secondary resources?
- Canada cannot stand on its own geopolitically. We must be closely tied to a major power. Intuitively that choice is the EU But I fear that China can move much faster and we'll find ourselves de-facto in their sphere while the EU is still debating this and that.
Good!
The less we depend on Trumpistan the better.
Trump is binding US automakers tightly to the fossil fuel industry, which at this point in history is like tying a boat anchor to a drowning man.
Canadians are incredibly pissed at Trump and his criminal TechBros. This change here is largely due to that.
Trump threatening invasion of Greenland is also aimed against Canada; the USA would have more and more military bases threatening Canada, so Trump's anti-Greenland policy is heavily aimed at threatening Canada rather than China or Russia. One can see how he helps Putin versus Ukraine - one can not trust Trump.
The result of another self-own by the Trump administration.
Money talks, actual values walk. Always.
I get that this is seen as a "practical" move north-of-the-border, but understand, this is the kind of move that guys like Trump, Putin, and Xi all require. They want this kind of thing to happen, because it shows the real issue was never one of democratic values and human rights. If Canadians valued that then their PM wouldn't be inking a deal with China in response to what Trump is doing. There would be some sort of deal with Europe, perhaps, but not China.
The next time the Canadian government brings up some sort of issue with the treatment of Canadians by ICE or some other kind of issue, you can bet that the horse trading will involve a reference to the fact that this deal happened.
That's already more-or-less the rationale in Trump's dealings with Europe: for all of the complaining about Russia as a threat or the sanctity of NATO and how the Greenland affair threatens all of that, there was a solid 15-year-long run where the continent was more than happy to buy petroleum products off the Russians while ignoring escalating human rights violations in Russia along with incursions into South Ossetia and the Donbas.
He picks up on these sorts of deals as hypocrisy based in realpolitik, and will exploit it.
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Another resounding Trump success!
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)
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.
According to Russian users, Chinese EV works poorly in cold climates. I don't think Canadians prefer EVs anyway.
Chinese EVs are not what you want flooding the global market.
Every Chinese business big enough to play at the global scale has the government in it's power structure. They don't necessarily dictate business decisions but every bit of data collected is by default accessible by the government.
Having a significant fraction of a country driving around in Chinese EVs gives an insane amount of information to the Chinese government for free. It's not just direct information either like the driver's identity and personals, with millions of cars on the road a lot can be inferred, like if the parking lots at military bases suddenly fill up on a Tuesday afternoon or traffic between a high value person's home and an airport gets unusually slow.
These correlation attacks are not just theoretical, Strava leaked the location and layout of a military base in Afghanistan, accidentally, by showing the most commonly jogged routes by users on their public map.
These cars have cellular modems, they will have wifi and bluetooth hardware, if a particular person's device was identified at, for example, a political meeting or business conference then that person could be trivially tracked by the dozens of Chinese cars that they pass in a day. The information could be smuggled home along with all the normal diagnostic, update and service info that streams out of a modern car.
This could be done today by the American government, and it is to some extent, to identify, and locate, protesters and criminals by their mobile devices but it takes time, access to equipment/logs that the government does not always own.
And it may sound paranoid but remember that China was caught operating their own "police" force around the world not long ago, they will take advantage of any opportunity they are given to spy on other countries.
edit: HN seems to have a short memory. Which country was investigated for tampering with a Canadian federal election recently?
A Canadian satire site has the headline "Canada chooses lawful evil over chaotic evil":
* https://thebeaverton.com/2026/01/canada-chooses-lawful-evil-...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_(Dungeons_%26_Dragon...
Edit: A comment in /r/canada:
> TBF I would much rather work for Lex Luthor than The Joker if I had to choose one.