I was interested in finding out why Ford signed such a good contract with Canadian autoworkers. What I found wasn’t what I expected. But I do think it we can have something like a win-win if the country brings in Chinese EVs. Look at the numbers in my article and tell me what you think—.
https://open.substack.com/pub/billhulet/p/why-canada-needs-chinese-evs
The vast majority of car trips are about 10km. A bicycle would work for most of them. I personally think that electric golf carts in major cities should be legalized. They’ll be the ideal grocery getter, and short commuter vehicle. Speed is limited to 40km/h on them.
The car industry spends billions of dollars a year convincing people that cars are freedom. That you can drive anywhere and do anything in a car. Sadly the reality is that most of the time people are stuck in traffic or looking for a parking space, in cities. Once you start thinking out the car mentality, you realize you can hop on a train for a vacation, do most of your shopping close by if you live in a city.
Golf carts (or e-bikes) don’t work so well in the prairies in the winter when it’s -20 (or colder) outside and there’s several cm of snow on the ground. They aren’t meant for getting through snow, and they don’t have a heated cabin. Don’t get me wrong, I would love better options for small drives, but winter exists in other provinces. By the time you get an enclosed, heated, snow-capable vehicle, you are looking at basically a car anyway. We need to focus on EV charging station access so that people who live in an apartment like me, can use and charge EV’s.
You really need two different laws about driving, one set for urban, and one set for rural. In large downtowns, the speed limits are under 40km/h, and a start/stop traffic. In such places an electric golf cart would be fine. Getting city drivers out of gas guzzling SUVs should be a priority. You don’t need a dually pickup in downtown Toronto.