Honda

Leading players in Canada’s electric vehicle industry move forward with multi-billion-dollar plans to build manufacturing plants at heart of country's future low-carbon economy, as U.S. president agrees to last-minute stay on looming levies.

François-Philippe Champagne dismissed detractors of government's embattled $100 billion strategy to build an EV ecosystem, arguing sector will create competitive advantage for the country "for decades to come — but not overnight," in exclusive interview with Canada's National Observer.

Chinese brands are not a major player in Canada's EV market at the moment but imports from China have exploded in the last year as Tesla switched from U.S. factories for its Canadian sales to its manufacturing plant in Shanghai.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will do everything he can to protect local jobs, he promised on Monday, as he met with a union concerned that foreign workers are taking Canadian jobs at a new electric-vehicle battery plant in southern Ontario.

Nikkei Asia, a Japanese news outlet, reports Honda is considering building both a vehicle and battery plant in the country as part of efforts to catch up in the electric vehicle market.

Once a pioneer in green transportation, the auto company is now uttered in the same breath as Exxon. What happened?

When Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne gets in front a microphone to talk about electrifying Canada's auto industry, he has a favourite line to sum up his efforts to attract global investment: "Not everyone in the world wakes up thinking about Canada."

Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne says the convergence of Canada's automotive and mining sectors is working to lure more companies to Canada to make electric cars and the batteries that power them.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was also on hand, announcing a matching $131.6-million contribution from Ottawa to go toward Honda’s $1.4-billion upgrade.

Boasting about his $1 trillion infrastructure package, President Joe Biden overstated its reach by claiming it would result in 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations and meet his pledge to nudge half of U.S. drivers into EVs by decade’s end.

President Donald Trump is poised to roll back ambitious Obama-era vehicle mileage standards and raise the ceiling on damaging fossil fuel emissions for years to come, gutting one of the United States' biggest efforts against climate change.

Far from just impacting transportation today, the pandemic and ensuing economic fallout could have big implications for the transit systems of tomorrow.

Preparing for a lengthy legal battle with the Trump administration about how much pollution to allow from cars, California regulators on Thursday, September 20, 2019, said they were considering cracking down on other emissions to make up for any impacts on air quality.

A coalition of states sued the Trump administration on Friday, August 2, 2019, for the second time to block a planned reduction in the penalties automakers pay when they fail to meet fuel economy standards.

"I am very much in the relationship-building mode, where we're talking about the kinds of challenges and opportunities that companies are facing," said Trudeau,