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Hey there, Andre here. An EV driver since 2019, I’ve been fascinated by how quickly other countries have adopted the technology and puzzled why you can’t find cheaper models here in Canada. So, I wrote this week’s main story.
This week:
Five years ago, it was a novelty to see an electric vehicle on Canadian roads. Nowadays, if you’re stopped at a busy intersection in some cities, you’ll probably count four or five.
Statistically speaking, most of them will be Teslas. The Model Y and the Model 3 have been the best-selling EVs in Canada over the past few years, although the brand’s popularity has suffered recently thanks to its widely despised CEO, Elon Musk.
Even after recent price cuts, the Model Y runs for about $64,000, while the Model 3 is about $68,000. The next most popular EV models in Canada, Volkswagen’s ID.4 and the Ford Mustang Mach-E, run for $49,000 and $55,690, respectively.
Not exactly affordable.
Price has been one of the reasons Canadians haven’t embraced EVs as enthusiastically as Europeans. When you consider that popular internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles like the Honda Civic, Ford Escape and Nissan Rogue go for about $30,000, the cost of switching to an EV can be prohibitive.
Rachel Doran, executive director of Clean Energy Canada, says her organization did a survey last fall that brought this into stark relief.
“In a jurisdiction like the EU, you could choose from no less than 11 different options for a purchase price of $45,000 Cdn,” she told CBC News. That includes models like the Smart EQ Fortwo, Citroën ë-C3 and Dacia Spring. “In Canada, it was just two — the Chevy Bolt, which was discontinued in 2023 and only just reannounced for return to Canada for the 2027 model year, and the Fiat 500 E.”
Doran acknowledges there are a couple more options now, including an EV version of the Chevrolet Equinox, but it’s still “less than a handful.”
Last month, Ford acknowledged the issue of EV prices by announcing it would produce a $30,000 US ($41,000 Cdn) electric pickup. But it won’t be available until 2027.
Why doesn’t Canada have more cheap options?
Part of it is our proximity to the U.S. car market. David Adams, president of Global Automakers of Canada, said the vehicles available in Canada — whether electric or gas-powered — are generally a subset of the vehicles available stateside.
“So if, for instance, product planners can’t see a vehicle making a go of it … in the United States, it likely won’t come to North America, even if there was a market for it in Canada,” Adams said.
Given North Americans’ predilection for trucks and SUVs, the chance of more compact EVs trickling in seems remote.
The tariff chaos fomented by U.S. President Donald Trump also isn’t helping, says Adams, as any models being produced in the States are subject to a retaliatory tariff from Canada.
Doran acknowledges that EVs are generally more expensive than comparable ICE models. But Clean Energy Canada has modelled that when looking at fuelling and maintenance, an EV would save drivers about $30,000 — or $3,000 a year — over 10 years.
She says the recent clawback of federal and provincial EV rebates have strained demand. For example, last year in Quebec, the combination of the federal rebate ($5,000) and the provincial one ($7,000) would have shaved $12,000 off the price of an EV. The federal rebate was paused in January (although the government said a new one is in the works) and Quebec is gradually reducing its offer — by 2026, it will only be $2,000.
“If you help people get over the hump with that upfront purchase price,” Doran said, “it’s going to help people afford them.”
One of the big stories in recent years is the ascendance of Chinese-made EVs, particularly from the company BYD, which has overtaken Tesla as the world’s biggest EV manufacturer.
Not only that, but BYD offers vehicles as low as $10,000 US (around $13,800 Cdn). However, last year, the Canadian government followed the U.S.’s lead in placing 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese EVs, saying they were unfairly subsidized.
Some drivers might say that even with such a hefty tariff, a vehicle that cheap could be worth pursuing. But Doran cautions that anyone trying to acquire a BYD or any other Chinese brand in Canada would have to contend with the additional costs of safety certification and shipping.
“It doesn’t appear that Chinese EVs are a viable product here under current conditions,” she said.
Adams says it’s legitimate for Canadians to question the government’s strategy.
“It’s always a balancing act between what might be good for consumers and what’s good for the economy,” he said, noting the federal government has spent $50 billion attracting foreign direct investment, primarily to Ontario, for the manufacture of electric vehicles, batteries and battery components.
“That is the future of automotive, and they’re trying to ensure that has some chance of succeeding here,” said Adams. “If we allowed the Chinese vehicles into the Canadian marketplace, that would sort of be the end of our automotive industry as we transition to EVs, because the Chinese are about 15 to 20 years ahead of us.”
— Andre Mayer
Old issues of What on Earth? are here. The CBC News climate page is here.
Check out our podcast and radio show. In one of our newest episodes: A hiking ban in Nova Scotia is getting lots of attention this summer, from Joe Rogan to former “Freedom Convoy” supporters. The temporary rules have ignited an international debate about government overreach during fire season. Some Nova Scotians are calling the criticism fearmongering and want outsiders to butt out of the province’s affairs. We hear from an emergency management expert who says governments should prepare for more backlash against wildfire rules as the climate changes and summers become potentially more restricted.
What On Earth drops new podcast episodes every Wednesday and Saturday. You can find them on your favourite podcast app or on demand at CBC Listen. The radio show airs Sundays at 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m. in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Have a compelling personal story about climate change you want to share with CBC News? Pitch a First Person column here.
Last week, Martin Halek wrote about the decline of loons on North American lakes, which scientists have linked to climate change. Several readers suggested other factors could play a role.
The Martin family of Sakinaw Lake, B.C. and Ernest Somers of Midland, Ont., both thought motorized boat traffic could be a problem for loons. Somers wrote: “I’ve paddled … many lakes where at one time there were loons, and now there are none. They, together with myself, were chased off these lakes by human activity. Where once was quiet with the odd cottage, there’s now million dollar cottages, jet skis, and large motorboats. Try paddling against the wind when faced with the wakes of motor boats, coming at you from all sides. Then think of the loons attempting to nest at the side of a lake.”
Stephen Helston of Balsam Lake, Ont., wrote: “I am a scuba diver and have noticed an alarming number of goby fish, an invasive species, which carry botulism from [eating] zebra mussels (another invader), in our lake. If the loons are preying on the prevalent goby fish, one could stand to reason a transfer of poison through this altered food web.”
Laurie Fyffe has noticed more Canada geese and cormorants on Bass Lake near Perth, Ont. “I have literally watched a couple of cormorants ‘stalk’ a family of loons. They swam in close proximity, and dove when the loons dove, presumably trying to get their fish. I suspect that both these species are a threat to our loon population.”
We shared these concerns with three loon researchers in the story: Doug Tozer of Birds Canada; Walter Piper of Chapman University; and Doug Welykholowa, who tracks loons at Duck Mountain Provincial Park in Saskatchewan. They agreed factors like these may play a role locally. For example, Welykholowa said in his region, increased boat traffic is a concern, but there isn’t much evidence that invasive species are a problem. Overall, “climate change seems an attractive explanation,” Piper wrote. “What other factor is so widespread that it could cause a decline from Massachusetts to the Prairie provinces?” He added that the ways climate impacts loons may vary, from blackfly infestations in some regions to sudden heavy rainstorms in others.
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Many people who live in condo and apartment buildings would love to generate their own solar power, but don’t have access to the rooftop to install them on. In Europe and the U.S., they do have another option: plug-in balcony solar.
Kevin Chou, co-founder of plug-in solar company San Francisco Bright Saver, explains that the panels connect to a device called an inverter, much like your typical rooftop photovoltaic solar panels. The inverter plugs into a typical wall outlet.
“It just pushes electricity into that plug at a slightly higher pressure than the rest of the electricity coming in from the grid, so that you’re using the electricity from your solar panels first,” Chou said. Any unused power is absorbed into the power grid.
A plug-in balcony solar unit that can generate up to 800 watts can cost between $2,000 to $2,300 US (around $2,700 to $3,200 Cdn), but a 200-watt kit sells for as low as $400 US (around $550 Cdn).
In Europe, millions of balcony solar units are already installed. CBC’s Nick Logan took a look at why they’re so popular and what it would take to get them into homes in Canada.
— Emily Chung
Solar imports to Africa from China have jumped 60 per cent in the past year. A new report looks at which countries are seeing the biggest growth and why.
Some plant-based restaurants are putting meat back on the menu — or shuttering entirely. Cost seems to be at the root of the matter, the Guardian reports.
Trying to make sense of the noise over solar? Carbon Brief has an in-depth fact-check of the common myths about solar power.
Many countries, including Canada, are counting on underground carbon capture and storage to help stop CO2 from entering the atmosphere and worsening climate change. But there’s actually far less storage space for carbon than we thought, a new study suggests. CBC News looks at what that means.
More than 17,000 drone flights were deployed to fight fires in 2024 in the U.S., a huge jump from the 734 flights in 2019. Equipped with thermal imaging and “dragon eggs,” they can spot areas at risk of re-igniting and ignite those with built-up fuel.
For Canadians, the beaver is more than a buck-toothed rodent — it’s a national emblem, etched on nickels and central to the country’s origin story. Now, a new study from the U.S. suggests this symbolic animal can make arid Western landscapes more resilient by blunting drought, slowing floods and shielding areas from wildfire with the dams they build.
The study, conducted by researchers at Stanford University and the University of Minnesota and published in Nature, analyzed more than 1,500 beaver ponds across 40 streams in the western United States. The study found the size of those ponds followed predictable rules tied to dam length, stream power and surrounding vegetation.
The findings add weight to a growing body of evidence that beavers may be acting as ecosystem engineers, reshaping waterways in ways that benefit not just their own survival, but that of entire landscapes. By slowing streams and spreading water onto flood plains, their dams create lush pockets of habitat that can endure long after fire or drought has swept through.
And as climate change drives longer droughts, heavier floods and fiercer wildfire seasons, researchers and land managers are looking for low-cost, natural solutions to build resilience. The study suggests the Canadian icon could be part of the answer — stepping in where human engineering can’t.
Aerial images reveal scope of beaver engineering
To capture the full scope of beaver engineering, the researchers used aerial and satellite imagery to show how clusters of dams working in tandem can transform landscapes.
Emily Fairfax, assistant geography professor at the University of Minnesota and one of the researchers in the study, said on the ground, beaver wetlands can take a full day to navigate, she said. But images from the air can reveal a landscape 10 times larger in minutes.
The study mapped more than 1,000 beaver ponds in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Oregon. The ponds that worked together were then grouped into what researchers called “complexes.”
The researchers found that climate, soil and landform all determined how big the ponds and dams got, and that bigger dams reliably created bigger wetlands.
Beaver complexes as wildfire ‘speed bumps’
Beaver complexes create wetter, greener patches across a landscape. Fairfax likened the phenomenon to giving the landscape a patchwork of fire-resistant “speed bumps,” allowing wildlife a place to shelter and giving ecosystems a springboard to recover more quickly.
In a study from 2020, researchers found a visibly stark example of this during the 2000 Manter Fire in California, where an image showed that vegetation near a beaver pond stayed green while the surrounding areas burned.
Marc-Andre Parisien, an Edmonton-based scientist who studies how wildfires spread across the landscapes with the Canadian Forest Service, called the recent beaver pond study “incredibly original.”
He was initially skeptical about the impact of beaver wetlands, but finds the new research convincing. “There’s this fuel reduction that’s been created by those beavers just by virtue of having those dam and the wetter greener vegetation. So it can make a difference.”
However, he notes that given the size and intensity of some of the recent wildfires in Canada, not even the plucky beaver stands a chance of stopping one dead in its tracks.
“You’ve got a 50-metre wall of flame moving fast across the landscape; you can dump all the water you want in front of it. It’s like spitting in a campfire,” he said. “But they fragment the landscape in terms of the fuel continuity, and you can work with that.”
Fire crews can treat beaver ponds as natural anchor points, Parisien said, using the wetter patches to stage operations and slow the spread of flames.
In Ontario, where dozens of wildfires have burned through thousands of hectares of forest this summer, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry said it won’t be bringing in more beavers to help.
“Beaver populations are already widespread and abundant in Ontario,” spokesperson Sarah Fig said in an email, adding the ministry isn’t considering any relocation or reintroduction efforts.
— Colin Butler
Thanks for reading. If you have questions, criticisms or story tips, please send them to [email protected].
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Editors: Emily Chung and Hannah Hoag | Logo design: Sködt McNalty
