Problem: Buyers prefer to wait for Chinese electric vehicles than buy Western ones

Canadian EV customers are delaying their purchasing decisions as they wait for more Chinese EVs to arrive on their shores, according to a new survey, which suggests widespread awareness of China’s EV dominance is causing EV buyers to completely ignore offerings from Western automakers.

The survey was commissioned by Clean Energy Canada and shows that Canadian interest in electric vehicles is slowly increasing, with almost half of them probably or certainly inclined to purchase an electric vehicle as their next vehicle.

But the most interesting thing is that among potential buyers of electric vehicles there is a big obstacle: China.

Originally, Canada had the same tariff on Chinese EVs as the United States, a 100% tariff implemented (recklessly) by President Biden. As trading partners of the United States and with a strongly interconnected auto industry (since Detroit is literally a stone’s throw from Canada), Canada thought it would be prudent to maintain a united front on auto tariffs.

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But then idiocy happened. The illegal occupier of the US White House imposed tariffs on Canada, causing immediate job losses and repeatedly threatening its sovereignty. Now, the United States’ relationship with Canada is strained and Canada is looking for allies in the rest of the world.

At the same time, China saw an opportunity and decided to impose a tariff on Canadian canola. This was a big problem for farmers in the center of the country and had the somewhat unexpected effect of more conservative, oil-loving Canadian provinces pressuring the Canadian government to reduce tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and allow them into the country, in exchange for China removing tariffs on canola.

Now, China and Canada have an agreement that will allow 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles to enter the country per year, and the first have begun to arrive.

But so far, there are still not many Chinese EV models available in Canada. Companies are launching their distribution networks, but everything is still going on. In reality, Canada is nowhere near selling this year’s quota of 49,000 EVs, with only about 16,000 Chinese EVs imported in total.

Some brands, like Tesla, have already met their quota allocation because they already had established distribution networks. Other brands are lagging behind. Therefore, there are not that many models available and more are expected to arrive next year.

This has led to a situation where Canadian buyers know that a wave of new, high-tech, reasonably priced electric vehicles is just around the corner (although they may be overestimating how cheap those electric vehicles will be, since prices will be higher in Canada than in China). And where the type of cars they currently have access to in North America largely come from Western brands that have spent this year lobbying against electric vehicles and canceling models. Or, perhaps worse, brands associated with the United States, which are subject to significantly more negative public opinion in Canada than ever before.

So Canadian EV buyers don’t want to buy American cars and know that Chinese EVs are coming, higher tech and cheaper than European and Japanese EVs.

All this led to the interesting result of the survey in question. Of the 48% of Canadians surveyed who said they were likely to purchase an EV for their next vehicle, 42% said they wanted to “wait for more Chinese EVs to become available.”

So these are Canadians who I already want an electric vehicle and are ready to buy one, at least the next time they buy a car. But instead of purchasing one, at a time when gas prices are at all-time highs (due to the same idiocy mentioned above), they are waiting until they see more Chinese cars.

This is a massive condemnation of everything the West has to offer in the electrical space right now. In the past, it was thought that Western buyers might be skeptical of Chinese brands, viewing them as lower quality, as has long been the stereotype in the West.

But now, that dynamic has turned upside down: Canadians are rejecting the options available to them now, and wait that Chinese options become available, hoping that they will be superior to the traditional options that have been available to them.

And since it’s taking time for Chinese brands to establish their networks and ship cars to Canada, that means many Canadian buyers are sitting on their hands right now.

It’s an interesting situation, given that most other countries already have access to Chinese EVs and they are selling well in those countries. And perhaps it will offer us a glimpse of what could happen to the American auto industry, if it ever becomes suspected that Chinese EVs could make their way here (which, inevitably, in the long run, I’m sure they will).

With American automakers so far behind on electrification and constantly pushing to catch up further behind, it does not seem that the gap is going to narrow. In time, Americans will see that the rest of the world, including their two closest neighbors, will have access to cheap, efficient electric vehicles that won’t cause them the anxiety of supporting the most evil industry in the history of the world for fuel. Eventually, they’ll get tired of spending so much for so little, when everyone else is getting great cars for so little money.

There are some moves within American automakers to try to compete, but whether they are too little or too late remains to be seen. China has literally liberated thousands of new models of electric vehicles, with fierce competition that drives down prices and increases quality.

We don’t see that kind of competition happening in the United States, especially after Republicans sent so many EV jobs to China. And receiving the security blanket of tariffs won’t encourage tougher competition, it will just lull automakers into a false sense of security. The only way to catch a moving target that’s in front of you is to move faster than it, and American automakers just aren’t doing that right now.

But American consumers will eventually catch on. And Canada’s electric vehicle buyers are a sign of things to come.

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