Car sales may be slumping, but policy could give electric vehicles and the auto industry a charge

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Kevin Carmichael: If governments want to get more electric vehicles on the road, they will have to keep the incentives coming

I’m sure the Montreal Auto Show will be livelier this weekend, but without any motorheads around, it sure felt a lot like a museum on the morning of Jan. 16, the day before the annual event’s official opening.

Canadians bought 1.92 million cars and light trucks last year, a three per cent drop from 2018 and a six per cent decline from a record 2.04 million in 2017, according to Rebekah Young, an economist at the Bank of Nova Scotia. This year probably won’t be any better. Bloomberg News this week reported that North America’s Big Three automakers have slowed production, and Aurora, Ont.-based Magna International Inc., one of the world’s biggest auto-parts makers, cut its outlook for 2020.

“If you look at the industry in 2019 being down over three per cent, the story there is traditional sedans are down over 15 per cent,” Stoneley said. “SUV sales were up, so it’s really a story of segmentation. That’s where we are investing. We see it as a very healthy industry. The commercial industry is very healthy, which is good for us, we are dominant in that space. And SUV sales, truck sales, are very strong.

I went to the auto show because Stoneley was doing interviews to promote the Canadian debut of the new Mustang Mach-E, an all-electric SUV that’s been tagged with Ford’s most famous nameplate. It could be an important innovation, but it’s not going to bend the demand curve for automobiles anytime soon. The base price is $50,500. Ford expects to build only 50,000 this year because the supply of batteries won’t allow for more.

 

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That's what I want, the government shaping what car I can buy to support their climate fraud.

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