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
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Canadians need to expand mass transit systems and build cross-country high speed rail (instead of fucking pipelines).
Cars are good for driving out to your aunts farm house in the country, but anything else should really be a train, a bicycle or just walking. Lugging around a massive vehicle like most EVs are is unsustainable. Get a bucket bike with an electric motor instead.
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.
You’re saying that if we did have better public transit and city infrastructure design, it would be more reasonable to have a cargo bike, right? Not that one should buy a cargo bike now even if they’re not in the exceptionally rare situation in Canada where it would be doable.
Only asking as I saw the downvote and figured someone might misinterpret that last bit.
Edit: nvm, he actually was a douchebag who really meant that shit, wild. And of course, it’s some fuck from Vancouver who thinks everyone lives in their city.
This country has a huge problem with upper middle-class libs who claim ownership over activist movements that have greater impacts on workers. I can tell a lot of you don’t come from lower-income, blue-collar communities because you answer systemic problems with individualized, moralized consumerism. No, buying a product does not make you a more moral or conscious person.The fact that the threads below are related to cargo bikes specifically, which are already as expensive as a used car with no extra benefit besides bragging righs under a car dependent system, should show you the kind of people who think this is some activist work. If you’re a worker and you have 3k to spend on a vehicle (for a cheap cargo bike mind you), you’re spending it on a used car or repairs that your car will inevitably require. These are not people who have to use the system most of us are forced to use. If they were, they’d have at least thought of the fact that you can buy bike trailers for much, much cheaper; but they didn’t have to consider the cheaper options.
Unless you show up to MP’s and MPP’s offices (and honestly, are willing to take some risk in protest), municipal meetings, and take into account the needs and resources available to people who dont have the privilege of time to do those things, you’re not helping.
I think it’s more feasible in more places that most people think.
Really now? Could you elaborate?
I was responding to this re cargo bikes:
in the exceptionally rare situation in Canada where it would be doable
I live in one of the most bike friendly cities in Canada. Mild winters and generally mild summers. Good infrastructure that’s getting better. And yet there are still so many people who say “oh I could never because”, and then follow with things they do that people who choose to bike also do. Many people who think it’s not feasible in their life have never tried. That’s not to say it’s feasible every day and in all circumstances but more than many people think.
“everything that is not my world view is wrong” - see if fixed that for you, you did not need to be so verbose.
Not sure why you picked a beef with cargo bikes with everything else. Every day I see those, carrying kids, groceries… I was impressed with this dude on home depot… but I digress. You might not know Canada as you pretend to.
I never said anything negative about cargo bikes besides that they’re not practical in the majority of cities in this car-dependent country.
I know Canada better than the vast majority of Canadians, I assure you; even if just because so many of them refuse to be critical about their way of life. Where are you that you’re seeing these regularly? I know for certain I’ve seen more cybertrucks than cargo bikes (one) in the past few years living in three cities in Southern Ontario; never saw them out east. I’ve been all over this country, and I can name maybe five cities where – given you can afford rent in the more densely populated, typically higher-income neighborhoods – you could make this work given you also have much more time in a day than many workers are afforded.
I left it intentionally ambiguous because it is always doable, just more risky in a lot of places and really depends on a persons appetite for it; their personal weights given to a cost/benefit analysis as well as thinking up ideas to reduce that risk (riding as a group, visual cues for drivers, etc).
*Not to mention any and all reasons for using vehicles is essentially placing ones own convenience and comfort over everyone elses safety and health, including their own.
Wow, that’s uh, that sure was something.
No, I don’t think I’ve lived anywhere in this country that had it as an option. I’ve never been anywhere where myself and family/friends are within a convenient enough distance to plan that out, even if we had the time to make that journey by bike when it takes forty minutes on the round trip minimum alone by car already. Much like the majority of workers in this country, it’s not that I don’t want to put that effort in, I literally could not do that without sacrificing my health when I can barely keep up with that as it is (yes, with exercise). Even further, my life is already threatened enough by the fucks who drive around in light trucks they can barely see out of, which is most drivers at this point. Bright lights, a horn, and being in a whole fucking car has only just barely saved me on multiple occasions so far.
I don’t know where the hell you’ve lived here, but it certainly does not resemble cities in most of this country. You gotta change your understanding of what qualifies as a choice if you’re going to want to understand why people do things that you wouldn’t; they’re not just less aware or stupid.
Edit: not even going to touch the bullshit about it being a selfish “choice.”
Obviously I touched a nerve and also didn’t bother actually reading your comment after the, uh, weird introduction and the edit.
Good luck not doing anything about the cascading environmental collapse lol. Please block me to continue ignoring (or rather, “not having a choice about”) the death and destruction you and I are inherently complicit in. Cheers.
Yeah dude, totally the mentality of someone who shows up for the work. LARP
Totally the mentality of someone that ignores the destruction of the environmental systems that create the air they breath. Hey, at least you got to work comfortably. 😘
Comfort is having the disposable income for a cargo bike; I drive to work the way I have to since I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on creating more work for myself. Really good activist work you’re doing by trying to paint poor people as immoral, super eco-friendly stuff. Bet you’re so active and willing to risk your free time by challenging this system in any more genuine way.
Canada needs to make its own EVs. Lets not pretend they are economical anywhere. Every state subsidizes them, so private investment is suboptimal.
There is a military industrial benefit for having domestic capacity, so lets stop pretending we’re helpless and just build a Canadian EV company.
This would really help advance our battery tech industry and clean power sector. Hopefully pushing Canada into becoming a leader in renewables and clean energy.
What battery tech industry. Canada is a joke in R&D, lowest of the G8.
I hear you and agree, but there are a good handful of companies in Ontario working on battery storage and energy storage facilities.
Most I see are for expanding energy storage part of the electrical grid in Ontario.
Some other companies I can think of at the moment.
None of that is new IP.
Even Magna could not make a business model for a Canadian EV.
They do make Xpeng EVs in Austria. Most of an EV is the battery, and we are a decade too late to compete with China because Trudeau has his head up his ass.
In order for Canada to make a profitable EV, we would need to sell a huge number in the USA and EV sales there barely cracked 7%.
Compete? No one is competing. In every country with automotive production, the state subsidizes them. China is doing it. Europe is doing it. Canada is doing it with American companies’ production.
Profit is an outdated notion.
This is what Mexico is doing right now. Here is the vehicle the government is producing. https://www.olinia.auto/
That’s a bullshit golf cart which would not be street legal in Canada.
My point is, the Canadian government could do what the Mexican government is doing. No need to copy the exact vehicle. Canada is not Mexico. And “street legal” is just a law that can be changed.
You seriously want flimsy carts on public roads maxed out at 40kmhr?
Link without tracking: https://open.substack.com/pub/billhulet/p/why-canada-needs-chinese-evs
Is that what the extra stuff on the URL does? If so, I’ll stop using the auto-generated link and use the cleaner one. I changed the link on the original post too.
Usually a question mark is where non-essential parts of a URL start. So for example:
youtu.be/T___j1atRAw?si=T9de90Ls3GhPIMvb
?si=T9de90Ls3GhPIMvb - This section of the url is for tracking. You can safely lop that off and the link will still work.
Thanks muchly!
Canada needs quality inexpensive vehicles for the masses. I don’t care where the hell they come from.
Electric golf carts should be legalized in most major cities like Toronto. It’s good enough for the city, to commute and get groceries.
For rural areas in Canada people need very fuel efficient transport. Encourage people to use motorcycles in good weather. Allow Kei trucks.
Also for rural kids: Sweden: agricultural vehicles allows kids 15 and older to drive cars without a proper driver’s licence, as long as the vehicle has been altered to have a maximum speed of 30 kilometres per hour. France: sans permis cars are not allowed to go faster than 45 km/h, but can be driven by anyone with a license.Those are a lot of good, immediate solutions. I wish we weren’t so locked in with the big car manufacturers and unions and “business”.
Pointless when the highways around Toronto are parking lots.
It’d be pointless to have inexpensive cars available in a car-dependent country because one city has bad traffic?
Name one city in Canada without bad traffic.
My guy, you’re living in a country where most cities have fewer than 200k people living in them. Ffs, Charlottetown doesn’t have bad traffic, lol, takes about ten minutes to drive across the whole damn city. I think too many of you people think that the two cities you live are the entire country. Had another dicknuts on this post talking about how poor people are immoral for not owning cargo bikes because they’re feasible in his specific neighbourhood in Vancouver.
Yes, infrastructure must improve for this country to have any future where we can meet the needs of our people, that does not mean that every consideration should be made only with Toronto in mind; that doesn’t even happen in Toronto, as you’ve pointed out. Or did you forget why those highways are where they are?
