Chinesische Elektrofahrzeuge kommen nach Kanada. Sollten sie also auch hier gebaut werden?

China won’t build car plants in Canada unless they know we buy their cars. Importing a small number first to test the market is the logical way to go. Ford’s call to not buy them is stupid and contrary to Ontario’s long term interest. Doug, don’t forget: “Nostalgia is not a strategy “.

They probably won’t any time soon, but them being built here by Canadians would alleviate most of the issues folks have with this right now.

Import them, if after a few years, people are happy with the price and quality of the product then they will sell well. Then we can look at manufacturing them here. We, sometimes unfairly, equate Chinese manufacturing to trash products. But I’m assuming (hoping?) these cars won’t be Temu quality bullshit.

I remember back in the 70’s when everyone was losing their minds about Honda and Toyota and how they were going to put Chev and Ford out of business and eliminate North American jobs. They are built factories here and are all getting along fine. I’m just hoping these Chinese EVs will be a success and run Elon right out of business.

I assume that the vast majority of Chinese EVs bought in Canada would still be the cheaper Chinese exported/heavily subsisted by the Chinese government ones, but BYD investment and construction of EVs in Canada would help soften the blow somewhat for Canadian auto workers without wasting more money on protectionist policies etc.

As much as I’d like to see it, I don’t see a benefit for the Chinese manufacturers as long as the US still blocks Chinese vehicles from import. A decently sized factory can output 100 000-200 000 cars per year and Canadians only buy about 2 million new vehicles per year, so either 5-10% of Canadian sales will need to be of the model built at whatever factory whichever Chinese manufacturer decides to enter the market, or else some of the cars will have to be exported overseas into the European or Asian markets where most Chinese manufacturers already have domestic factories, adding an unnecessary shipping cost to the vehicles.

I can’t see the economics ever working. 90% of the vehicles made in Canada are exported to the US market. If the US continues to not allow Chinese made EV imports, which I fully expect them to do there is just not enough of a market in Canada to justify building a factory. Now if Canada banned all American vehicle imports (which we will never do) and a Chinese EV company produces a single model of Canada Car and a single model of Canada Truck and that is all we are allowed to buy it could work. That will not happen.

Of the ~2million vehicles sold in Canada every year only 150,000-200,000 are actually made in Canada. Factories produce vehicles by the millions not the 100’s of thousands. It just doesn’t add up.

One question for anyone who works in logistics and might know the answer: I’ve been thinking about whether growing penetration of Chinese cars into the Canadian market (and ideally having them built here) would change where the car industry is based in the country. it’d take awhile to build a local supply network of most/all of the parts for a BYD car in Ontario wouldn’t it? at least until the domestic supply chain is up it seems like the easiest place for a plant to be placed is in BC because you can also get things from china to BC more easily than from China to Ontario.