And yet, EV prices stubbornly high in North America.
this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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North America has little competition because of the tariffs on everything not made in USA.
AFAIK Canada is getting out of that shadow. I read an article about a month ago, how Canadian imports were routed through USA, and that it stifled EV adoption in Canada.
This is actually one of the very few places that US tariffs make sense. (Not from a consumer perspective of course, but from a nationalist industry protection point of view.) The rest of the tariffs the US places are silly because there isn’t much other manufacturing in the US to protect.
Oil dependency is a national security issue for a lot of countries, tariffs on EVs have really backfired here while also increasing climate change
This is actually one of the very few places that US tariffs make sense.
Not really if you want fair competition.
Why would the US want fair competition?
Like I said, the consumers do not benefit from the tariffs, the nation does.
No the nation doesn't, it just degrades into further noncompetitiveness, and increased consumer prices.
Short term tariffs can allow domestic manufacturing to reach the design and scale to be competitive without tariffs. This was, in theory, the idea behind the 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs. Of course, none of the American auto manufacturers are doing anything with that leeway other than continuing to be terrible.
You are 100% correct that this is the general idea, the problem is that USA actually had a head start with Tesla, (as painful as it is to me to admit.)
Now the lack of competition will only result in the loss of the lead USA had until just a few years ago.
Of course Nazi Musk and Nazi Trump undermine American exports, and no amount of US tariffs can compensate for that.
Because US businesses will only compete and innovate if you force them. Leave them safe behind ramparts of protective trade policies, and they'll keep coasting on 1990s technology, as the country as a whole slowly becomes a backwater.
If only prices were related to costs ... 😄
And the options are still not great.
I of course looked into used EV but...there's nothing to buy used. You can only get shit with less than 80kW batteries for under $15k in Canada. Think 2006 - 2015 models with high mileage so even less range. I need something that can go 60 kilometers when it's -40'C outside. Looks like I need to eat the gas prices for another 5 years or so waiting for bigger used battery capacity to trickle down.
Also, have you bought 9volt batteries recently? Batteries are NOT cheaper in the real world in any use case in my experience.
It's amazing how much batteries have decreased in price, we now not only have mid range cars that can be electric, the lower range sub compacts have been entering the EV market too.
Among all the shit happening today, this is actually a bright spot, making an EV more affordable to normal households.
Maybe except USA that is clearly behind now, despite Tesla was a major influence in the early days of EV.
All the shit happening may lead to an earlier transition into renewables, ironically trump to help reduce the impacts of climate change. We should name the new wind turbines in his honour. But yeah the US will be fucked, power in the new currency in electrostates and renewable is significantly cheaper
But the savings haven't flowed down to us. Gotta make line go up, it seems.
Lithium ion batteries are far cheaper now at a consumer level than they were thirty years back.
EDIT: I'm actually surprised that a higher proportion of laptops today don't ship with 100 Wh batteries. Go back some years, and shrinking the battery had a much larger difference in cost than it does today. The larger battery gives you longer battery longevity (makes it more reasonable to charge to 80%, say), can be used to make a laptop run more quickly, can power more devices. The only drawback is weight, and it isn't that heavy.
Blame Shell.
Should've put a fourth line to make sure we understand the drop
