What the China-Canada EV Trade Deal Really Means

Summary

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins

Episode: What the China-Canada EV Trade Deal Really Means
Date: January 28, 2026
Host: Heatmap News

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Robinson Meyer explores the significance and implications of the recent trade deal between China and Canada—an agreement swapping Canadian canola oil for Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), all while the U.S. maintains strict EV tariffs against China. The episode features interviews with Greg Mordu (professor and former Toyota Canada exec) and Andrew Mosman (Heatmap contributor) to contextualize both the trade deal and broader shifts in the North American EV market, as well as the demise of GM's Chevy Bolt and prospects for affordable EVs in 2026.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The China-Canada Trade Deal: Context and Analysis

• Background & Structure

  • On Jan 16, 2026, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed to import 49,000 new Chinese EVs per year in exchange for China buying large amounts of Canadian canola oil ([00:44]).
  • This deal followed Canada and the US previously imposing over 100% tariffs, effectively banning Chinese EV imports. The EU imposed smaller 17-37% tariffs ([04:49]).
  • The "49,000 vehicles/year" figure is similar to past import limits on Japanese automakers in the 1980s and marks a shift from a pure tariff approach to a managed import cap ([06:38]).

• Industrial and Political Ramifications

  • The cap is managed by the Canadian government (not China or manufacturers), which will allocate the numbers among automakers ([10:12]).
  • This management could incentivize investment by companies with both Canada presence and China manufacturing (e.g., VW, Volvo, Polestar, Tesla) or encourage Chinese automakers (like Chery) to set up shop in Canada.
  • The deal resolved a brewing political conflict—satisfying Western canola farmers and minimizing opposition from automakers in Ontario ([14:09]).

Notable Quote

"It became political as much as anything. It didn’t really boil over, but it had the potential to. ... Canada’s reset its trading relationship with China. That’s a check mark, and it has satisfied thousands of canola farmers in western Canada in doing so. Frankly, it’s a relatively small price."
— Greg Mordu ([14:09])

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2. Market Impact: Will Chinese EVs Appear in North America?

• How Soon for BYD/Xiaomi on the Road?

  • Unlikely in the immediate future due to strict regulatory differences and the expense of launching dealer networks. Any appearance will depend on further moves by the Canadian government ([12:21]).
  • Some discussions on easing import rules if cars are certified in Europe, but that would be a significant departure from current regulations ([12:21]).

• Who Benefits Most?

  • Companies already established in Canada with EV factories in China may gain initially.
  • True market disruption depends on whether a Chinese automaker establishes production within Canada—a prospect being explored by Chery ([17:25]), a company offering both EV and internal combustion vehicles.

Notable Quote

“If you’re an electric vehicle company, and that’s all you are, I’m not particularly interested in doing business with you as a dealer. I need to sell everything.”
— Greg Mordu ([19:29])

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3. Lessons from Automotive History: Parallels and Divergences

• Similarities to the 1980s Japanese Import Caps

  • The Japanese cap led to brand upscaling (e.g., Lexus, Acura) while American automakers shifted towards larger vehicles and SUVs ([21:09]).
  • Unlike in the 1980s, China is seen as a less predictable partner, and the US has entirely shut out Chinese automakers, for now ([21:58]).

• The Innovation Gap

  • Mordu cites patent data demonstrating China’s explosion of EV and battery technology innovation:

  "50% of the world’s automotive patents have come out of China ... by contrast, the U.S. ... responsible for 8%."
  ([23:09])

  • Argues American industry risks stagnation if it maintains a “fortress US” policy, blocking out innovative competition ([26:15]).

Notable Quote

"In the absence of opening up the market to competition and embracing new technology, the US auto industry is going to continue to be challenged going forward."
— Greg Mordu ([24:46])

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4. Public and Political Reaction

• Domestic Reactions in Canada

  • The deal has not immediately captured public imagination; Mordu notes little student discussion initially, with some increase following international coverage ([32:56]).
  • Suggests most Canadians should “go slow” in expecting immediate access to unfamiliar Chinese EV brands ([33:22]).

• US/Canada Tensions

  • President Trump’s weekend tariff threats may have factored into Carney’s rationale for making the deal; “doing nothing” in the past led to plant shutdowns in Ontario ([30:00], [30:37]).
  • Canada is expected to soon announce further automotive industrial policy, possibly increasing tensions with the US ([31:36]).

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5. The State of North American EVs in 2026

Guest: Andrew Mosman

• The End of the Chevy Bolt

  • GM’s affordable Bolt returns for a single production year but will be discontinued again, as the Kansas factory reverts to gasoline cars due to waning federal EV support ([37:04], [38:19]).
  • Signals a shift away from truly affordable EV options, hinging on market and regulatory uncertainty.

• 2026 as the Year of the "Semi-Affordable" EV

  • Rivian’s R2, an adventure-styled SUV set to start around $45,000, is highlighted as the most anticipated new EV ([35:25], [36:23]).
  • Entry-level EVs like the Nissan Leaf and models from Toyota/Subaru aim at the $30k bracket—affordable compared to past options, but still challenging without subsidies ([39:39]).

Notable Quote

"This is the year where you can start to make more of an affordability case for EVs ... they're close to being cost competitive with some of their gasoline-powered counterparts."
— Andrew Mosman ([38:33])

• Other Trends
  • Automakers shift from EV pickups (Ford Lightning, Cybertruck) to rugged, SUV-style vehicles (Jeep Recon, Range Rover EV, Rivian R2), reflecting evolving consumer demand ([43:05], [43:30]).
  • The American car market faces a reckoning with soaring new car prices, reaching $50,000 on average, raising affordability concerns ([44:18]).

Notable Quote

"The next step in the electrification of America is just suburbanites who shop with their wallets deciding to take a chance on EVs."
— Andrew Mosman ([45:52])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the Political Stakes:
  “It didn’t really boil over, but it had the potential to ... Canada’s reset its trading relationship with China. That’s a check mark, and it has satisfied thousands of canola farmers.”
  — Greg Mordu ([14:09])

• On Innovation Risk:
  “If they get too comfortable with this sort of fortress US they will eventually crumble. ... US automakers need to be successful globally for them to be successful at all.”
  — Greg Mordu ([26:15])

• On Chevy Bolt Demise:
  “The problem with New Bolt is that ... they are going to close down the production run in the middle of next year in order to make room at the Kansas factory to start making gasoline cars.”
  — Andrew Mosman ([38:19])

• On the 2026 Affordability Push:
  “2026: The year of the semi-affordable suburban electric SUV.”
  — Robinson Meyer ([45:54])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• China-Canada Trade Deal Context: [00:44] – [09:24]
• Trade Cap & Industrial Policy Analysis: [09:49] – [14:09]
• Comparing to 1980s Japanese Import Policies: [21:09] – [26:07]
• Patent/Innovation Discussion: [23:09], [24:46]
• Public Reaction Discussion: [32:56] – [34:08]
• Interview with Andrew Mosman Begins: [34:29]
• Chevy Bolt Death/New Model Analysis: [35:00] – [39:39]
• Other Affordable EVs in 2026: [39:39] – [41:35]
• EV Market Trends (Pickups to SUVs): [41:43] – [45:52]

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Conclusion

The episode untangles the strategic, political, and industrial consequences of Canada’s new deal with China, showing how it fits into broader North American EV market shifts. The consensus: while the deal isn’t a market revolution, it signals a possible opening for Chinese EVs and a search for new industrial models amid US retrenchment. Meanwhile, North American EV buyers will see more "semi-affordable" and rugged-looking electric SUVs, with truly affordable options hanging in a precarious balance.

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This summary preserves the conversational expertise and analytical tone of the original speakers, providing a comprehensive guide for listeners and non-listeners alike.

Transcript

[A]

This episode of Shift Key is brought to you by heatmap Pro. You already rely on heatmap for daily reporting and commentary on the energy transition. That's why you listen to this show. Well, Heat Map Pro brings all of our research, reporting and insights down to the local level. It's a software platform that tracks all local opposition to clean energy projects and data centers. It forecasts community sentiment and it guides data driven engagement campaigns. Go to heatmap News Pro to book a demo and see the premier intelligence platform for project permitting and community engagement. That's heatmap News Pro. Hi, I'm Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heat Map News, and you are listening to ShiftKey, Heat Map's weekly podcast about decarbonization and the shift away from fossil fuels. It's been a huge few weeks for electric vehicles. It really kicked off on January 16th when Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, struck a trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping, where Canada agreed to import 49,000 new Chinese electric vehicles a year in exchange for China agreeing to buy Canadian canola oil in huge volumes. Again, literally, it was an EVs for seed oils trade deal. A week later, Carney sort of declared the end of the post war rules based global order in a speech at Davos where he said middle powers should band together and stop living within a lie, unquote, of American hegemony. That understandably got a lot of attention. And President Trump, who initially said he thought the Chinese Canada trade deal was a good idea, then lashed out against Carney this weekend and threatened new tariffs on Canada, which basically confirmed why Carney had sought out the deal in the first place. And then finally, to cap it all off, General Motors has just announced the end of the new Chevy Bolt. This is the affordable $30,000 US made electric vehicle that they just brought back. It's going to be a one year. So on this week's show I wanted to put all these stories in context with each other and I especially wanted to know, are we going to see BYD cars on the road in Toronto and Vancouver anytime soon? Which of course means that are we going to see them in Detroit and Seattle and Fort Lauderdale? Do Chinese automakers now have a toehold in the North American market, or at least the northern half of the North American market? Because Chinese EVs have of course been sold in Mexico for the past few years. I personally think the signals are mixed. Canadians bought about 1.9 million new vehicles last year, and so 49,000 Chinese EVs would just be about 2.5% of the total car market. It's frankly not that much. 49,000 cars is also about how many Chinese EVs were already sold in Canada in 2023, which is the last calendar year before the Trudeau government joined the Biden administration in shutting down imports. So to get a sense of the deal right after it came out, I spoke to Greg Mordu. He's a professor of engineering and public policy at McMaster University in Ontario, and he's a former executive with Toyota's Canadian manufacturing operation. Our conversation back then was so helpful that I wanted to have him on Shift Key, basically to ask him, you know, is this a big deal? Are we going to see BYD or Xiaomi cars in Canada and therefore in the United States, or is this maybe better for Western automakers who already have Canadian dealerships and can now import cars from their Chinese factories and sell them in Canada? Also, how does this fit into the much longer history of Asian carmakers from Japan or Korea selling cars in Canada? We'll start off our show today with my conversation with Greg. And then in the back half of the show, we'll talk to heatmap contributor Andrew Mosman about the late death of the chevy Bolt, the EVs he's most excited for in 2026, and why this year might be the year of the affordable EV in the United States anyway, or at least the year of the semi affordable EV that Americans will actually buy. Greg Mardu, welcome to Shift Key.

[B]

Good morning.

[C]

Earlier this month at this point point, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada struck a trade deal, notably not a free trade deal, that's become important in the past few days with the Chinese government around two goods, really, Canadian agricultural products specifically, it seems like canola oil, and Chinese electric vehicles. Can you start this conversation just by explaining to us what you thought might come out of it? When Carney was in China and there was beginning to be trickles that this would be some kind of successful effort, and then what actually happened?

[B]

So I'll step back even a little bit further because as your listeners may know, that Canada went in lockstep with the US a year and a half or so ago and put in a hundred percent surcharge on Chinese electric vehicles. And so ultimately, a Chinese electric vehicle coming into Canada was at 106.1%, 100% on the surcharge, just like the US and 6.1%, which is the MFN rate, most favored nation rate. So 160%, 6.1%, effectively shutting the Chinese electric vehicles out of the Canadian market. And meanwhile, a little bit later the Europeans came in and they went in at somewhere between 17 and 37% or so. Still a lot, but not as much. And frankly, my assumption going into this was trying to balance how is the US administration going to respond and how can we find a deal that will satisfy the Western Canadian canola farmers and what price will the, the auto industry in Canada pay? So I thought that a nice easy defensible policy would be one that looked like the EU's 17 to 37%, which they based on their assessment of what individual Chinese automakers received in incentives from the government of China.

[C]

And they claim to have kind of gone through company by company and said, you know, this company deserves an 18% tariff. This company receives more or less support from its local government. So it's a 37% tariff. And everything kind of fell in that range. But it was a automaker by automaker distinction. Yeah.

[B]

And so ultimately last Thursday, just over a week and a half or so ago, when the numbers came out at a 49,000 unit hard cap on Chinese electric vehicles and a discussion about Chinese investment in Canada going forward, I was interested in a couple of levels. First off, they didn't do what I thought they'd do, but I thought the 49,000 was interesting. And to me it harkened back to the entry of the Japanese automakers into North America or the industrial policy measures that were placed on Japanese automakers in North America in the early 1980s. In 1980, in the aftermath of OPEC, high priced oil and high priced gas and the need to move to smaller, more fuel efficient cars. And the US automakers responded with vehicles that, that Robinson, your mom and dad might remember, like the Dodge Omni, the Ford Pinto and the Chevy Vega. And the Japanese had been doing this for generations and had the Corolla and the Civic and all those frankly, better cars, they were gaining market share. This was at the same time as the economy was going into the ditch and sales were down. So the Japanese were making out like gangbusters and the policymakers were under a lot of pressure. So they put in place these export restraints. Japan said, in Canada's case, for example, they said, you're going to, you're going to be stuck at 171,000 units going forward. And Toyota, you had this amount of Japanese market share in 1979. This is what you get going forward and so on down the line. And that's not completely unlike what they did by putting these restraints These hard caps now that China has agreed to at 49,000 in, in 2026. The difference is in the early 1980s, Japan managed the cap. And Japan said, you get this much, you get that much and you get that much in 2026. My understanding is that Canada is going to manage the cap. And that's interesting because there are a couple of dozen Chinese electric vehicle makers and they're all scrambling for 49,000 units. They might, none of them might scramble for anything because a couple of thousand cars is not enough to, to set up an infrastructure, recruit dealers, figure out your parts system, engage in the marketing. And so it gets difficult.

[C]

Let's talk about that more.

[A]

Well, when we first talked, I think.

[C]

Your initial thoughts were right after the deal. Like, this is good for Western automakers that already have a presence in Canada but have manufacturing operations in China because they'll be able to piggyback on the dealerships they already have. They'll be able to piggyback on the marketing budgets they already have. They won't need to introduce consumers to new vehicles.

[A]

Since then, though, we've at least heard.

[C]

Of one domestic Chinese automaker, I think, Cherry, that is maybe interested in setting up manufacturing in Canada. Looking at the situation right now, this is 49,000 cars. That's maybe 2% of the Canadian annual market annual sales. Which automakers stand to benefit most from this initial deal.

[B]

So this is why the fact that the allocation is being managed by the government of Canada and not the government of China is so important. Because if the government of Canada's motivation is to get lower cost or low cost electric vehicles into Canada quickly, then my initial thinking that the companies with electric vehicle operations or manufacturing in China and an infrastructure in Canada, the Volkswagens, the Volvos, the Polestars and Tesla, that they would be the initial and quick beneficiaries. And they still might be. But the fact that the government of Canada is managing this, they may be able to look at this and say, I don't just want to alter the market or provide an entry point for lower cost electric vehicles. I want to find an industrial policy measure that gets some production in Canada. And they're not going to get that by having this little sampler of a whole bunch of companies being allocated 2,000. So there has to be other options for sales going forward. And we've heard people like Howard Lutnick say there's no way that these vehicles are coming into the US and he's probably right. So they're going to have to find another dance partner. Going forward. And it might be Europe, it might be the uk, it could be, you know, South America. So we'll see where this goes.

[C]

When the news first came out, there was a lot of excitement and a lot of dread about the idea that we would see Chinese, these, I think the most high profile Chinese domestic brands like BYD or Xiaomi on the roads in Canada and therefore on the roads in the US pretty soon. Because of course, you know, Canadians are driving across the border all the time. Do you think we'll, we're likely to see those brands on the road anytime soon or should we think about this as it's really going to be at the discretion of the Canadian government?

[B]

Well, not soon. Those types of vehicles are going to take a little while to come into Canada, I think. And I think that because in the current environment, Canada has like the US very strict environmental and safety regulations for cars and it takes some time and a big bag of money to get a car registered to be able to be sold in North America. The standards in North America are different than the standards in, in China, are different from the standards in Europe, and they're even different between Canada and the U.S. in some small aspects. So this all takes time. Now there have been some discussions in Canada in the early stages of changing our regulations to say, listen, if your car is good enough for the roads in Switzerland, say on a cold, wintry day, why aren't they good enough for Canada? So there's some movement there. And so if cars are registered in Europe for sale, they may be able to be registered in Canada, but that would require a pretty significant deviation from what the current regulatory environment is. So the BYDs and those kinds of companies that we've heard about but haven't seen on North American roadways may take quite some time to manifest in Canada.

[C]

Is the biggest news here seen to be about the cars or the canola side of this? I think you referenced that this deal kind of relieved this problem for Canadian canola farmers. How acute was that problem within Canadian politics?

[B]

It's a big deal. And, and it became, or had the potential to become to pit one region of the country, Ontario, with its auto manufacturing center, against Western Canada and the thousands of canola farmers that rely on access to global markets in general and China in particular to move forward. So it became political as much as anything. It didn't really boil over, but it had the potential to boil over in the absence of deft stick handling by the government of Canada. I think they did a pretty good job, frankly. The D3 automakers in Canada are not particularly happy. I'm sure that Honda and Toyota, which make the lion's share of vehicles in this country, are probably not happy. They're not as vocal about these things. And the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, is not happy. But the reality is it's not going to make the market any bigger or smaller for that. 49,090% of the vehicles that Canadians buy right now are made outside of Canada. So we're talking about 5,000 vehicles of loss of lower production in Canada. 5,000 vehicles is one assembly plant for one week. So it is not devastating, is it perfect? No. I think Canada would like to find a way to have more vehicles produced in Canada. That's what Doug Ford would like. But meanwhile, Canada has reset its trading relationship with China. That's a check mark, and it has satisfied thousands of canola farmers in western Canada in doing so. Frankly, it's a relatively small price.

[C]

The other part of the deal is that there will be in the next three years a kind of quote, considerable investment, unquote, from a Chinese automaker or Chinese automaker in Canada. Has that changed the politics in Ontario at all? How have automakers reacted to that aspect of the deal so far?

[B]

Well, they haven't reacted because any direct or overt reaction would be tantamount them to them putting their hand up and say, just want you to know I'm a protectionist. In some quarters that's still not a positive attribute. But when I first heard of the 49,000 and the hope that there would be some Chinese automotive investment in Canada, my first thought around the investment was, well, this is going to be hard for some of the reasons I communicated a few minutes ago. Then I thought a little bit longer. Well, government sources who said we're looking for Chinese investment probably wouldn't send that out unless there had been just some discussions and they thought they had something in the bag. And then a few days later, we heard stories about Cherry poking around and looking for qualified personnel to help them launch their production in Canada.

[C]

Presumably, can you walk through just like the expenses that a Chinese company would face upon entering the Canadian market and maybe how that would compare to the revenue from 50,000 vehicles?

[B]

Well, it's not easy. It's one thing to say I'm going to sell cars in the country, and then you got to figure out, well, how many cars am I going to sell? And I got to set up my distribution system and I have to set up my parts distribution system. I have to make sure I have qualified Service personnel. And in distribution, I'm talking about a volume of dealerships. And dealerships are private. They're not owned by the company. They are by and large owned by individual business people who write a check for $5 million to buy some property in a garage and ingrain themselves in the community so it doesn't happen overnight. And so they need to have a full suite of vehicles available. So you got one car and that's not enough. I want 8 or 10, I want pickup trucks, I want SUVs. And frankly, if you're asking me to spend 5 or $10 million on a dealership, it's 20, 26 in North America. I want to sell to 100% of the market, not 7 or 8%, which is the electric vehicle market. Right now. I need a company with internal combustion engine vehicles. I don't need a technology company. I need an automotive company. So if you're a electric vehicle company, and that's all you are, I'm not particularly interested in doing business with you as a dealer. I need to sell everything. And so that's why a company like Cherry may be interesting, because Cherry was an internal combustion engine company long before they were an electric vehicle company. So they have the full suite. They may have a better chance at gaining a toehold, and there may be some utility in gaining that toehold. From a production perspective in Canada. The reality is, and people sometimes lose sight of this in Canada, is that Chinese auto companies always could have sold internal combustion engine vehicles in Canada. And if they were prepared to pay a most favored nation tariff rate of 6.1%, not 106.1%, 6.1%. And none of them were interested at 6.1% for internal combustion engine vehicles. So 49,000 electric vehicles is interesting. It may capture some attention, but it may not do a whole lot. We'll have to see where this goes.

[C]

You compared the, the policy that the Carney government is using around Chinese automakers to the policies that the U.S. and Canadian governments used around the Japanese automakers in the 1980s when they were beginning to rapidly gain market share. And so there were these export caps or import caps really imposed on, on Japanese automakers. And at the time, what that led to was the Japanese automakers going upscale and inventing, you know, Lexus and Acura and these luxury brands that were able to capture more profit from the North American vehicle segment while ultimately building on the kind of underlying Japanese automotive technology that undergirded the kind of more entry level vehicles.

[A]

And I think over the course of.

[C]

The 80s into the 90s.

[A]

Global currencies kind of rebalanced.

[C]

The Japanese economy ultimately stumbled at the end of the 1980s.

[A]

And I think there was more of.

[C]

A balance found where the big three wound up moving more in the direction of larger vehicles and SUVs. Japanese automakers, Claude market share, but then didn't seem likely to put Ford or GM fully out of business. Is that kind of a guide to where we could go with Chinese automakers? Or is this far more destabilizing than that period? Because ultimately China, although it's now reset its relationship with Canada, is a not fully as predictable partner as Japan was.

[B]

So there are some parallels, and we've talked about some of the parallels between North America and China in 2026 and Japan in the 1980s. The critical thing to remember, though, and this is the important lesson, I suppose, and far be it from me sitting in Canada to give the US lessons about how they should prepare their automotive industry going forward. But I'll do it anyways, and I apologize.

[C]

We're actually really, I think, any.

[A]

Any advice, anyone?

[C]

We're very willing to take at this moment.

[B]

So the uniqueness of Japanese automakers in the 1980s in the US or Canada for that matter, is that they weren't shut out. And, and over the long haul, that was good for U.S. automakers because it exposed them to new forms of competition and new forms of production and lean manufacturing and all of things that all of those, all of the factories and all of the manufacturers, regardless of. Of their location of their headquarters, are much better today because of it. The challenge for the US is how do you replicate that in the 2025, 2026 time frame? Because they've said no to China. China, you're not coming in. The US has said no to electric vehicles or taken out a lot of the incentives to move forward retrenched quite a bit. So the market has retrenched. We know that. And we know that Ford and General Motors have pulled back from their earlier enthusiasm for electrification. The problem with that is the rest of the world hasn't. Your listeners will understand that the rest of the world is moving towards electrification in leaps and bounds. My own research has shown that over the past 10 years, for example, and this isn't the only way to assess this stuff, but 50% of the world's automotive patents have come out of China. A big part of that is electric vehicle and battery patents. By contrast, the U.S. which has long been thought of as the center of global automotive production and innovation, has been responsible for 8%. So as I said, patents aren't the only way to look at this, to assess innovation. But in the absence of anything better, it's a very objective measure. And you can sleep on this for a little bit and I can stay up late for a couple of nights in a row, but I crash on the third day and I think the US Might be getting to the third day right now. And, and in the absence of opening up the market to competition and embracing new technology, the US Auto industry is going to be continue to be challenged going forward. I think some people already understand that. But, but if you need objective measures of innovation, I mean, patent volume is.

[C]

Pretty compelling in some ways. This is the big challenge that a lot of policymakers and I think a lot of auto executives are aware of that at some point the US Companies are going to need to learn from these Chinese firms. I mean, you hear it from Ford. I think Biden administration policymakers are very torn about this between how much do you let let companies in, how much do you get attacked by Republicans for letting them in? Of course, Donald Trump has floated the idea of having Chinese automakers come to the U.S. there's a partial recognition from a lot of people that ultimately North American manufacturing operations and North American engineers are going to need to learn from Chinese engineers in order to just maintain the technological frontier.

[A]

But nobody wants to like go except Mark Carney seemingly wants to go ahead.

[C]

And let them in and make it happen.

[B]

Well, this isn't easy either. The US Automakers have their feet in a lot of different areas and the market has said, and policy has said, no, no, no, we're going to cling on to internal combustion engines. If you want to sell cars and make cars and employ people, you got to be in the internal combustion engine business. And oh no, no, no, we want to move to electrification, electrification at the same time. And that's hard. Meanwhile, they're dealing with some competitors that are all in and can be all in. And the public policy in their environment is all in on electrification. So the US Automakers have this challenge. But, but if they can't manage their way out of it, the longer term implications are serious. Because the Global automaker is 100 million vehicles a year, give or take. The US automotive market is huge. It's 16 or 17 million a year. But you need to have your automakers that are headquartered in the US successful globally for them to be successful at all. And if they get too comfortable with this sort of fortress US they will eventually crumble. And that's the policy challenge that any US Administration is confronting, and that's the, the policy reality that the Detroit automakers are grappling with right now.

[C]

Do you have a sense of why Canadian consumers have not gravitated to EVs.

[A]

In the US of course. You kind of hear two explanations.

[C]

There's lack of charging. There hasn't been the same robust policy support. It's as you were saying, we had fairly generous tax credits to support EV purchases, then they were taken away.

[A]

But in Canada, you know, it's been.

[C]

A liberal government for close to a decade, if not more than a decade. Certainly the kind of ideologically the policy environment has been supportive, and yet EV purchasing is on the same scale as the US Market. Is there a reason why Canadians haven't gravitated?

[B]

Well, it's interesting that you use the term the ideological policy environment because there has been an ideological policy environment that has gravitated to electrification. The practical policy environment has not kept up. And we have all the same challenges in Canada as evident in the US there's still the anxiety around range. And the automakers that are in Canada are the same automakers that are in the US and those automakers are not public policy creators. They respond to public policy and they try to influence it, of course, but what they're trying to do is make money. And the way to make money, or lose less money, if you will, and they've all poured a lot of money into this and lost a lot of money on electrification, is to make higher end vehicles more expensive vehicles. And for example, we in Canadians, we as Canadians, we like smaller vehicles. We typically buy vehicles that are smaller than the US and smaller generally means less expensive. And the automakers that are selling electric vehicles in this country are selling a lot of really nice expensive vehicles that Canadians look at and you say, yeah, maybe that's for somebody else.

[C]

Over the weekend, there was a new tariff threat from President Trump. He seems to like to do this on Saturday when there are no futures markets open. A new terror threat on Canada. You know, it's kind of interesting because he initially said that he thought if Canada could make a deal with China, they should. And he thought that was good. Then over the weekend, he said that it was actually bad that Canada had made some free, free trade, quote unquote deal with China. Do you think that these tariff threats will affect any Carney actions going forward? Is this already priced in slash? Is this exactly why Carney has kind of reached out to China in the first place?

[B]

Well, I think it all comes under the Headline of deep psy. And we'll see where this goes. But for the first 12 months of the US administration and the threat of tariffs and the pullback and the new threat and this going forward, the public policy or industrial policy response from the government of Canada and the province of Ontario where automobiles are built in this country was to tread lightly. And tread lightly generally means do nothing. And by doing nothing didn't stop the challenges. And so doing nothing led to Stellantis shutting down an assembly plant in Brampton, Ontario, General Motors shutting an assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, General Motors reducing a three shift operation in Oshawa, Ontario to two shifts, and Ford ragging the Puck Canadian term on the launch of a new plant or a new product in their Oakville, Ontario plant. So doing nothing didn't really help Canada from a public policy perspective. So they're moving forward on two fronts. One is the resetting of relationships with China and the hope of some production from Chinese manufacturers. And two, the promise of an automotive industrial policy in February or at some point this spring that may cause some more restless nights from the US Administration. We'll see.

[A]

Last question.

[C]

It's been about a week and a half since or two weeks since this deal was announced. I think when we first talked after the deal, you said that this was not something that your students seemed very aware of. In the past two weeks, obviously Prime Minister Carney has been in the international news much more than he was.

[A]

Are you hearing people, and by people.

[C]

I mean Canadians, your neighbors, your students, your friends talk about this trade deal and the possibility of buying a Chinese ev, or is this something that kind of is, you know, people talk about politics, maybe they mention it, but it's not something that you hear folks actively discussing.

[B]

Well, first off, when I was talking to you about my students, I was talking to you about, I have a lot of Chinese students and I was asking them at the time that the Prime Minister Carney and his entourage was in China, are you hearing much about this? And their response was, insofar as the Chinese media is concerned, no. And so I found that interesting and probably not surprising, but. But that's where that was. Subsequently we've talked about it and they're paying a lot more attention. Maybe because I asked them to pay attention to it, but also just talking to people around the streets, they're talking about what does this mean? And I have to say, well, go slow. In the absence of a really directed industrial policy from the government of Canada. That said, Cherry, we'll give you 25,000 of these, 49,000 in exchange for you building something in this country or something like that. There's been a tendency to think that they're going to have these new names with lots of vowels that they aren't particularly familiar with available to them. And my point is, slow your roll. It's going to take a while for that to come forward.

[A]

We'll leave it there and we'll have.

[C]

To talk with you back again when the Canadian EV industrial policy comes out, perhaps sometime this spring.

[A]

Greg Mordu, thank you so much for.

[C]

Joining us on Shift Key.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Now for the back half of the show, let's bring in Andrew Mosman. He's a Heat Map contributor and observer of the electric vehicle market. And look, not everyone lives in Canada. Not everyone is going to get fancy.

[C]

Chinese made electric vehicles anytime soon.

[A]

But it's going to be a big year for American made EVs nonetheless, or at least for EVs sold in America. Andrew recently wrote for Hemap about the EVs that American consumers should look out for in 2026.

[C]

He also wrote for us about the.

[A]

Deaths of the Chevy bolt, the demise of the bolt. Andrew Mosman, welcome to Shift Key.

[D]

Hey, good to be here.

[A]

You had a great piece for Heat map called the EVs everyone will be.

[C]

Talking about in 2026. That's a rundown of the vehicles we might look forward to. There has actually been a big change to this list since you wrote this story that we're going to get to. But what EVs are you looking forward to this year? Slash, which EVs do you think American consumers are going to get excited about or have an option to buy this year? They wouldn't have had the option to buy in the past.

[D]

Best well, I think the car of the year is got to be Rivian R2, which is sort of in prototype right now and is due out in the, I think the latter half of this year is the plan right now. Rivian, I think has, has kind of taken over from Tesla as the E.V. only darling of the moment, especially given Elon Musk's governmental antics and all of that. They're excellent vehicles. The R1T truck, the R1S SUV have been starting 70,000 at the lowest. They put out fancier additions that are in the, in the six figures. R2 is sort of their SUV, scaled down from a very, very big three row SUV to your standard two row five seater family vehicle. Rivian's branding and approach is still very adventure, off road focused, very capable, but is going to be coming in more like 45,000. You know, not a cheap vehicle, but one that many more Americans could afford. So I think if you were going to pick one, it's that.

[A]

So the R2.

[C]

I agree. The biggest story of the year and the make or break for Rivian. I think the degree to which this year is like the decisive year for Rivian is probably well understood in EV circles, but is worth emphasizing because not only are they depending on the R2 to start moving a large number of vehicles, but also they have a number of policy objectives that they're waiting progress on from the Trump administration, including their Georgia factory, including pollution credits and payments from the Department of transportation.

[A]

But the R2 is a second half of the year story.

[C]

Are there any big EVs that we should be thinking about that are coming in the first half of the year?

[D]

Yeah, the, the big one which we alluded to earlier is that they have they finally begun delivering the new version of the Chevy Bolt, which is something that I was very excited about. I saw the new version at a reveal event just three months ago that they did here in la. The figures are great. You know, the car doesn't look that much different from the outside from the, the original version. That was sort of one of the darlings of the, the previous era of EVs looks about the same on the outside, but the, the current Bolt that has just sort of reached customers this month in January 2026. I think they got the mileage up to 262 on the battery. Quite good for a car that size. It starts under 30. I think with the delivery fees and everything that are attached to it, you basically could get the cheapest one for exactly 30 grand. Chevy actually did a very good job with the new Bolt. The problem with New Bolt is that all along they had told us that it's going to be a limited run vehicle. They didn't say exactly how limited. There was always some wiggle room in there that if it was a real success, maybe it would become a mainstay of the Chevy lineup again. And we just heard last week that that's not the case, that they are going to close down the production run in the middle of next year in order to make room at the Kansas factory to start making gasoline cars.

[C]

There again is the sense that they like retooled their Kansas factory to make bolts. Trump won. They realized the entire support of EV policy program was going away and they were like, well, let's do it for a year and then stop.

[D]

Yeah, I think so. I think they were in too deep to, to, to cancel it entirely. They had made not a big fuss, but a medium fuss about saying, okay, we're listening to all of our customers who missed the Bolt and they want it back. The first one was a success story even with the problems that it had. So yeah, I think that's exactly it. The thing that it says to me is this is the year where you can start to make more of an affordability case for EVs, because even with the disappearance of the $7,500 federal tax incentive for buying one, there's several models, including the Bolt, coming out right around 30 grand, to the point where even without that, they're close to being cost competitive with some of their gasoline powered counterparts. Once you get there, the problem is that when you're competing on price in entry level cars, the margins are slim. And so with Trump winning and the tax credits going away and the tariffs coming in, suddenly the Bolt is a lot less promising as far as making money.

[A]

A few more cars coming this year.

[C]

I'm just reading your story. So we get the Nissan Leaf. That's another kind of classic EV that's coming back also around this thirty thousand dollar price point. I think Toyota and Subaru are Both bringing new EVs to the market this year, including. We're getting an Outback ev, right?

[D]

Yeah, we are, basically. I don't remember if they changed its name to something else, but, but Subaru and Toyota had both been kind of dragging their heels in this EV race and really not wanting to go big like some of the other legacy brands have, like Hyundai. And now. Yeah, we're finally getting versions that are basically the, you know, instead of compliance cars that no one would really be excited about, they're effectively fully electrified versions of successful gasoline models.

[C]

Yeah, and it feels like that's part of what we've seen in EVs over time is that like there are sub segments of the market that are very brand loyal, especially to brands like Toyota or Subaru. Or we saw it with the Honda Prologue last year where it's like they were waiting for the brand of car they buy to make an EV because they were EV curious. And once Honda or Subaru or Toyota made a decent ev, then people went out and bought it, even if the underlying technology was borrowed from another automaker, as was the case I think with the Honda Prologue where it was just a GM car under the hood, really.

[D]

Yeah, that's right. And I, I think I wrote a story. I remember, you know, when when Rivian R2 and then their next gen one R3 were first announced, talking about how that segment of the auto market of, you know, reasonably affordable, very sort of off road capable, rugged looking, adventure being their personality vehicles in the battery electric space was wide open because that's Subaru's territory and they weren't doing anything, anything. So now you've got R2 coming out like we said, but. But the window closed a little bit because Subaru is finally putting out proper, decent electric cars for people who want a Subaru.

[C]

What is the one EV or vehicle trend or narrative you think we should be keeping an eye on this year?

[D]

Well, outside of the big question of affordability, which I think is the biggest thing of this year, I think the next one after that, we talked about Rivian, we talked about Subaru, but you know, you look at Jeep, they're finally coming out with Recon, which is basically an EV only version of the classic Jeep Wrangler, your trail icon. They're making an extended range EV version of the big Wagoneer. Range Rover is finally coming out with their ev. So a lot of that kind of stuff is finally happening. It's one of the segments that's more difficult to do because electric power is better in the city and not quite as good for long distance, far flung driving once you get far from chargers and that kind of thing. And obviously a lot of people who own Range Rovers never take it out of the city. But point stands, people are finally trying to make that happen. Sort of cousin of that, which is what's happening in the pickup truck space we saw just in the last month or two. Ford finally said they're not going to make lightning anymore. Silverado EV is still out there. But that attempt of the last several years to say let's do battery powered versions of the full size pickup trucks that dominate the American car market because the batteries are so big and expensive and so many of the buyers are reticent to go electric, that just didn't work.

[C]

So now you're seeing something else.

[D]

You're seeing the Ram experiment is due out later this year with the extended range EV that's very promising, but also Stellantis having to sell an entirely new unfamiliar technology to the American public. And you're seeing the launch of the much heralded Bezos backed slate, which is an attempt to do the bare bones, super affordable truck.

[A]

It does seem like from this story.

[C]

That the automakers first tried the pickup. Like the first half of the decade was all about the EV pickup from the Ford F150 Lightning to the Cybertruck. And it was not that successful an experiment. But now where they're pushing is almost this like more facially rugged kind of more SUV style of vehicle. The R2, the Jeep recon, other SUV launches this year, and those, while they.

[A]

Have this rugged face, are maybe more.

[C]

In line with what a kind of suburban driver second car might actually want, which is the feeling of being rugged, but none of the utility of being rugged that it seems like pickup drivers actually seem to demand in their vehicles.

[D]

It is interesting. I mean, I feel like the pickup truck experiment was kind of a continuation of what's been going on in the American car market, where for a while there seemed to be no limit in what Americans would spend on a fancy big pickup truck. That was the. There's been so many headlines in the last couple months as to where, you know, the average sale of a new vehicle in America is almost to 50 grand now. And a lot of that is driven by Ford F150s that people buy the fancy extended cab version of it. And it suddenly creeps to 55, 60 thousand dollars and people are taking eight year car loans to pay for them. People are starting to just reach a breaking point with the car market on that. And there's evidence that there's a reckoning finally coming with the escalating price of cars in general. And I think that part of the reason why this first attempt to do pickup trucks failed so badly, it's just they're already expensive. And in order to make them have range and capability at that weight, you have to put such a big battery in them that they become astronomically expensive. You're kind of in this space with EVs now where. Right. The early adopters got them in the 2000 and tens. People with money who were excited about EVs got their Teslas and paid a lot of money for them to be early adopters. Everybody who is sort of like me and was willing to pay a little more to have an EV for climate reasons has got one. The next step in the electrification of America is just suburbanites who shop with their wallets deciding to take a chance on EVs.

[A]

Okay, so what I'm hearing is 2026.

[C]

The year of the semi affordable suburban electric SUV. We're going to have to leave it there. Andrew Mosman, thanks for joining us on Shift Key.

[D]

Great to be here, Ram. Thank you.

[A]

Shift Key is a production of heatmap News. Our editors are Jillian Goodman and Nico Loricella, multimedia editing and audio engineering is.

[C]

By Jacob Lambert and by Nick Woodberry. Our music is by Adam Krameow.

[A]

Thank you so much for listening and.

[C]

See you next week.