It’s a complete sea change. I feel Canada only set tariffs on cars out of some deference to the US auto industry. I don’t want to use slippery slope thinking, but this to me smells like rolling out a Canadian auto market that is not dependent on the US.

For the average family, being able to spend significantly less on a car is a big deal.

It’s just the beginning is my guess. If BYD or CATL commits to a factory /assembly in Canada I would expect limits to be raised on this as progress is made. Or if this goes well we could see limits raised as China drops Canadian product tariffs further.

If you're selling 49000 electric vehicles, and the tariff reduced from $CAN 50k (estimated cost of a new electric vehicle; 100% tariff tax) to 3k (6%), saving your customers $2.3B, that seems significant to me?

I'm only trying to give a feel for them numbers, I did check the average selling price for a new BYD

Cars last ~25 years, 49,000 * 25 = 1.2 million Chinese EV’s on the road in a steady state.

Not such as huge shift in total, but EV’s are still a small percentage of total vehicle sales in Canada.

> In a country with 42 million inhabitants this doesn't seem like a big change even for canada, let alone for the global economy.

The premier ("governor") of Ontario, where GM, Ford, Toyota, etc, have manufacturing plants feels otherwise:

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-canadian-el...

I think the precedent is big. It does seem like an attempt to adjust of their sudden drop in EV sales last year -

https://www.thestar.com/news/canadian-ev-sales-fell-off-a-cl...

Wait till Canadians find out how good Chinese cars for their price.

The thing I am wondering is if there was an unwritten agreement to build Chinese BEV plants in Canada. This would give China access to the US market without tariffs and would give Canada manufacturing jobs.

This is a “0 to 1” change in international relations. This doesn’t bode well for Trump’s trade war.

Shitty napkin math says china is saving about $1-$1.5B, so I agree, I'm not seeing the needle more here. What _does_ make sense is that this agreement will continue to evolve over time. What _doesn't_ make sense is the 10-40% battery capacity loss because of temperature, for EVs in canada. I think newer EVs manage temperature issues like this better than older models, but I am unfamiliar with chinese EVs so I can't speak to them.