ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE, ÉQUITERRE, DAVID SUZUKI FOUNDATION
Ottawa | Traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg People – A new study commissioned by Environmental Defence, Équiterre and the David Suzuki Foundation has found that the shift in new vehicle sales towards more polluting SUVs and trucks has cancelled out more than 80 per cent of the reduction in average fuel consumption that has been achieved by more fuel-efficient engines over the period of 2010-2022 in Canada.
Canada adopts its vehicle fuel efficiency regulations from the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and these rules currently allow automakers to get away with selling more polluting vehicles if they are larger in size or weigh more. These loopholes have encouraged automakers to make bigger and heavier vehicles while shifting car sales to SUVs to ‘game†the system.
This joint Canada-US regulatory policy highlights how the outcome of the US Presidential election will affect Canadian climate policy, road safety and cost of living. This is because SUVs and trucks consume, on average, 30 per cent more fuel than gasoline cars, larger and heavier vehicles are more dangerous on the road, and larger, gas-guzzling vehicles growing to dominate the vehicle market makes life more expensive for Canadian families.
The study uses economic modelling to examine various methods of addressing these regulatory loopholes in President Bidenâ€s final vehicle emissions standards rule, announced in March 2024, and how effective they might be in the context of new vehicle emissions rules applied in Canada, including the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard, which targets 100 per cent zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) sales by 2035. President Trump has promised to scrap Bidenâ€s vehicle emissions standard rules, as he rolled back President Obamaâ€s rules during his last administration.
Key takeaways from the study, conducted by the Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team (START) at Simon Fraser University include:
- Canadaâ€s Electric Vehicle Availability Standard, which aims to increase zero-emission vehicle sales to 100 per cent of the new vehicle market by 2035, is the most effective regulatory policy to reduce vehicle carbon emissions. If Canada did not have this regulation, and only relied on President Bidenâ€s EPA pollution standards for cars and trucks, carbon emissions would be cumulatively 84 million tonnes higher by 2035, equivalent to adding more than 21 coal-fired power plants to the grid or the emissions of 25 million cars in a year. Canadaâ€s Electric Vehicle Availability Standard is even more important in a world where President Trump rolls back the Biden rules and makes them even weaker.
- Design details of vehicle fuel efficiency regulations can have a significant effect on the market share of cars (sedans) versus light trucks (SUVs and pickup trucks) in Canada. The modelling indicates that regulatory policy changes such as re-classifying SUVs as cars rather than light trucks for emissions standards purposes would result in an 8 percentage point swing in the overall car vs. truck market share of new vehicles (the market share of cars sold increasing by 4% and the share of light trucks sold declining by 4%).
- The study modeled the introduction of an energy efficiency requirement for electric vehicles to encourage downsizing and to increase the supply of smaller, affordable electric vehicle models. It found that this would result in a 18 per cent swing in market share, with the market share of electric passenger cars increasing by 9 per cent and the market share of electric light trucks decreasing by 9 per cent.
Quotes:
Thomas Green, Senior Policy Advisor at the David Suzuki Foundation said:
“This study highlights how important the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard is for Canadaâ€s ability to reach its emissions reduction targets. Keeping Canadaâ€s own standard needs to be a political consensus across all Canadian political parties to ensure we reduce stubbornly high transportation emissions despite the American loopholes that have undermined our progress so far. The standard is protection against likely fuel efficiency policy rollbacks on the horizon from a Trump administration.â€
Nate Wallace, Clean Transportation Program Manager at Environmental Defence said:
“This study proves that US-Canada vehicle emissions standards have loopholes so big you can drive a gigantic truck through it. When automakers can get out of emissions standards by gaming the system with bigger and heavier vehicles, families end up paying the price by filling the gas tank more often, breathing more air pollution, and living with more dangerous streets for pedestrians, cyclists and young children. When Canada moves to adopt the EPAâ€s vehicle pollution standards, the federal Government should look closely at the policy options available to close these loopholes and explore applying efficiency standards to electric vehicles to enhance their cost of living benefits for Canadian families.â€
Blandine Sebileau, Sustainable Mobility Analyst at Équiterre said:
“The evidence is overwhelming: steadily improving fuel economy relative to prior year models has long been used as an industry talking point to defend the shift towards larger and heavier vehicles. As long as policymakers fail to tackle the shift in our overall vehicle fleet towards SUVs and trucks, technological efforts to improve internal combustion engines will continue to fail to actually reduce carbon emissions. The good news is that it’s possible to remedy the situation, while bringing down the cost of electric vehicles by 28% by 2035, without any impact on automakers’ profits.â€
ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.
ABOUT DAVID SUZUKI FOUNDATION (davidsuzuki.org): The David Suzuki Foundation is a national, non-profit organization that uses evidence-based research, education and policy analysis to conserve and protect the natural environment, and help create a sustainable Canada.
ABOUT ÉQUITERRE (equiterre.org): Équiterre seeks to make the necessary collective transitions toward an equitable and environmentally sound future more tangible, accessible, and inspiring. Since 1993, Équiterre has been helping to find solutions, transform social norms, and encourage ambitious public policies through research, support, education, mobilization, and awareness-building initiatives. This progress is helping to establish new principles for how we feed ourselves, how we get around, and how we produce and consume, that are designed for our communities, respectful of our ecosystems, in line with social justice, and of course, low in carbon.
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For more information or to request an interview, please contact:
Karishma Porwal, Environmental Defence, media@environmentaldefence.ca
Mathilde Condrain-Morel, Équiterre, mcondrainmorel@equiterre.orgÂ
