It almost sounded good.
Last month, the B.C. government announced proposed changes to its electric vehicle mandate, the details of which will be fine-tuned in the new year.
Given recent political headwinds, a recalibrated policy makes sense. Carmakers are looking for short-term relief and more flexibility to meet their targets while navigating tariffs, and consumers facing high costs of living need more help unlocking the long-term savings EVs provide.
Many of the flexibilities put forward — such as lower range requirements for plug-in hybrids and credits for automakers that offer lower-priced models or zero-interest financing — are reasonable and may even further benefit consumer affordability.
But then a single paragraph in the government release spoils the whole thing: “It is B.C.’s strong view that there should not be different targets in B.C. and Canada.”
While this may sound reasonable at first read, if B.C. were to actually go through with this change, it would make the provincial EV mandate functionally useless — a bit of green window dressing with effectively zero impact.
B.C. and Quebec have always led the charge when it comes to EV adoption in Canada, to the benefit of consumers, just as California leads it in the U.S. As a result, the province enjoys a huge head start, from far more EVs on the road (including more affordable used models), to a better charging network, to higher public awareness of the benefits of EVs.
One should not expect EV adoption in Metro Vancouver — which hit 27% last year — to mirror EV adoption in northern Saskatchewan. With some of the cheapest and cleanest electricity in the country, a more temperate climate, and more advanced EV infrastructure already in place, B.C. absolutely should expect — and aim — for higher EV adoption than Canada on average.
British Columbians are already more likely than all Canadians to say they intend to get an electric car next, and this is especially the case in the Lower Mainland, where seven in 10 Metro Vancouverites are inclined to get an EV as their next car.
Heck, go stand on any street corner in Vancouver or Victoria and count the EVs that roll by, then do the same in almost any other city across Canada. If this were a race, our starting line is halfway around the track.
All of which is to say that whatever national EV targets the federal government settles on next year (the federal EV mandate is also under review), B.C., like Quebec, will necessarily need to exceed them if those federal ones are even to be achieved.
This critical point is even more confused by the fact that the B.C. announcement included a number of above-mentioned flexibilities in the policy update to make it easier for automakers to comply.
With an EV mandate, automakers collect credits that count toward their targets. Usually, a credit is given for just selling an EV. But the province last month said it was looking at introducing new ways of giving out credits: for example, if an automaker were to offer zero-interest financing on a new EV, that could be worth a partial credit in addition to the credit given for selling said car.
This makes the policy less stringent than it otherwise would be, and accordingly such flexibilities are one way to turn down the dial on the EV mandate even if the headline target remains unchanged. In other words, if B.C. both introduced these options and at the same time adopted a lower federal target, the actual stringency of the policy could be much weaker than intended and, in some scenarios, potentially weaker than elsewhere in Canada — an absurd outcome considering B.C.’s significant starting advantage.
It certainly runs counter to Energy Minister Adrian Dix’s own words: “I think targets should be things that you can reach with efforts,” he has said. “So they shouldn’t be what you expect will happen, but what you can realistically reach with effort.”
A charitable interpretation might be that the province misspoke last month, and what they meant to say was that B.C.’s target should complement the federal one — that it should reflect a fair level of ambition for B.C. relative to federal efforts.
We hope that’s what was meant, and we’ll find out in 2026.
This post was co-authored by Trevor Melanson and first appeared in the Vancouver Sun.
