Swedish lithium-ion battery producer Northvolt said on Thursday it would open a $5.2 billion gigafactory in Quebec, the largest ever investment in the Canadian province and the latest in electric vehicle battery manufacturing capacity in the country.
With all these supply chains coming onshore, where’s the Chinese EVs? Whereas Chinese companies have been able to produce $10000 EVs, other car companies struggle to produce cars at twice the cost. EVs aren’t affordable in Canada without subsidies, but affordability is the single biggest driver behind purchasing decisions as we transition from fossil fuels to electricity.
Those $10,000 EVs all have one or more of the following issues:
(3) isn’t inherently an issue - I’ve seen some vehicles like that around - but it does limit the potential audience significantly.
The $10000 BYD Seagull has a respectable top speed and is definitely a car, but hasn’t tried to get certified in Canada, that is true. However, other BYD cars (the Dolphin, for example) have met accreditation standards in North America, Australia, and Europe.
The Dolphin is a $30k USD vehicle, though I’d love to see it come to Canada. I’m not very familiar with the Seagull, but it looks like it’s not available outside of China, which is probably an indication of its likely safety rating. If it’s safe, I’m not sure why it’s not available in the Western countries where they already have a presence.
The Dolphin was a 15k vehicle inside China lol.
China sells their minerals/materials at cost to keep manufacturing costs down
[citation needed]
Edit: it’s not loading for me but it might be here https://www.nbr.org/publication/chinas-control-of-rare-earth-metals/#
I will see if I can find a source but
My father who works high up in a military tech company.
They build as much as they can in China (without losing US contracts) then bring it to Canada to finish the parts they can’t do in China before moving it to the US to assemble and put a “made in USA” sticker on it
For me; the company I’m at gets all of our metals from China because it’s so much cheaper to ship it here
Where’s the indication that they sell at cost? Seems to me like they’re just able to drive costs down because of integrated supply chains.