Tesla's lead in China's red-hot electric vehicle market is shrinking, says rival XPeng

Manitoba ZEV Roadblocks highlight EV charging station gaps, rural infrastructure limits, dealership supply shortages, and ZEV mandate timelines, pushing mode shift to transit, cycling, and walking while hampering zero-emission vehicle adoption across the province.

Key Points

EV charging gaps, rural access limits, and supply constraints slow Manitoba's progress toward ZEV targets.

✅ Sparse Level 3 fast chargers outside Winnipeg

✅ Rural infrastructure limits long-distance confidence

✅ Dealership supply lags; long pre-order wait times

The federal government’s push toward zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), including forthcoming EV sales regulations, is hitting some roadblocks in Manitoba.

Earlier this year, Ottawa set a sales target to encourage Canadians to choose ZEVs. By 2026, their goal is to have ZEVs make up 20 per cent of new vehicle purchases. By 2035, they want all new vehicles sold to be ZEVs, a target that has sparked 2035 EV mandate debate among industry observers.

READ MORE: Ottawa sets 2026 target for mandating electric vehicle sales

Connie Blixhavn with the Manitoba Electric Vehicle Association (MEVA) doesn’t think Manitoba is on track.

“We’re not, not at all,” she said.

Blixhavn lives in Killarney, Man., and bought an electric vehicle last year. She plans her trips to Brandon and Winkler around the life of her car’s battery, but finds the charging infrastructure to be lacking and unreliable, a challenge echoed by Labrador's lagging infrastructure in Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Brandon is my closest place to get a level three charge, and when they’re not working, it limits where you can go,” she said.

Level three is the fastest type of EV charger, taking about 15-45 minutes to fully charge a vehicle’s batteries.

According to CAA, 68 of the province’s 94 EV charging stations are in Winnipeg. Blixhavn says it limits options for rural people to confidently adopt EVs, even as jurisdictions like the N.W.T. encourage EV adoption through targeted programs.

“I know we’re a big area, but they need to strategically plan where they put these so we all have access,” she said.

ZEVs are often not found on dealership lots – they have to be pre-ordered. One dealership employee told Global News demand far outweighs supply, amid EV shortages and wait times reported nationally, with some customers waiting one to two years for their new vehicle to arrive.

Mel Marginet with the Green Action Centre’s Sustainable Transporation Team is also wary of Manitoba’s ability to meet the 2026 goal, noting that even as experts question Quebec's EV push there are broader challenges. She believes the only way to come close is to change how much Manitobans use personal vehicles altogether.

“If we’re really concerned about the environment, we need to double and triple down on just reducing personal vehicle trips by and large,” she said.

Marginet points to transit, walking and cycling as ways to reduce reliance on driving.

“We depend on personal vehicles a lot in this province, and far more than we should have to,” she said. “My biggest worry is that we’ll take resources away from what we need to build to get people to use personal vehicles less.”

For Blixhavn, the lack of charging stations in her area has caused her to reduce her vehicle use. While she says she’s fine with the extra planning it takes to travel, she believes the lack of infrastructure is preventing Manitobans, especially those in rural areas, from catching up with other provinces, as Atlantic Canada EV interest lags the rest of the country, when it comes to choosing electric vehicles.

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EPA Auto Emissions Proposal 2027-2032 sets strict tailpipe emissions limits, accelerating electric vehicle adoption, cutting greenhouse gases, advancing climate policy, and reducing oil dependence through battery-electric cars and trucks across U.S. markets.

Key Points

An EPA plan setting strict tailpipe limits to drive EV adoption, cut greenhouse gases, and reduce oil use in vehicles.

✅ Cuts GHGs 56% vs. 2026 standards; improves national air quality.

✅ Targets up to two-thirds EV sales by 2032 nationwide.

✅ Reduces oil imports by about 20 billion barrels; lowers costs.

The Biden administration is proposing strict new automobile pollution limits that would require up to two-thirds of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2032, a nearly tenfold increase over current electric vehicle sales.

The proposed regulation, announced Wednesday by the Environmental Protection Agency, would set tailpipe emissions limits for the 2027 through 2032 model years that are the strictest ever imposed — and call for far more new EV sales than the auto industry agreed to less than two years ago, a shift aligned with U.S. EV sales momentum in early 2024.

If finalized next year as expected, the plan would represent the strongest push yet toward a once almost unthinkable shift from gasoline-powered cars and trucks to battery-powered vehicles, as the market approaches an inflection point in adoption.

The Biden administration is proposing strict new automobile pollution limits that would require up to two-thirds of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2032, a nearly tenfold increase over current electric vehicle sales.

The proposed regulation, announced Wednesday by the Environmental Protection Agency, would set tailpipe emissions limits for the 2027 through 2032 model years that are the strictest ever imposed — and call for far more new EV sales than the auto industry agreed to less than two years ago, a direction mirrored by Canada's EV sales regulations now being finalized.

If finalized next year as expected, the plan would represent the strongest push yet toward a once almost unthinkable shift from gasoline-powered cars and trucks to battery-powered vehicles, with many analysts forecasting widespread adoption within a decade among buyers.

Reaching half was always a “stretch goal," given that EVs still trail gas cars in market share and contingent on manufacturing incentives and tax credits to make EVs more affordable, he wrote.

“The question isn’t can this be done, it’s how fast can it be done,” Bozzella wrote. “How fast will depend almost exclusively on having the right policies and market conditions in place.”

European car maker Stellantis said that, amid broader EV mandate debates across North America, officials were “surprised that none of the alternatives” proposed by EPA "align with the president’s previously announced target of 50% EVs by 2030.''

Q. How will the proposal benefit the environment?

A. The proposed standards for light-duty cars and trucks are projected to result in a 56% reduction in projected greenhouse gas emissions compared with existing standards for model year 2026, the EPA said. The proposals would improve air quality for communities across the nation, and, with actual benefits influenced by grid mix — for example, Canada's fossil electricity share affects lifecycle emissions — avoiding nearly 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2055, more than twice the total U.S. CO2 emissions last year, the EPA said.

The plan also would save thousands of dollars over the lives of the vehicles sold and reduce U.S. reliance on approximately 20 billion barrels of oil imports, the agency said.

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U.S. EV Manufacturing Expansion accelerates decarbonization as Ford and SK Innovation invest in lithium-ion batteries and truck assembly in Tennessee and Kentucky, building new factories, jobs, and supply chain infrastructure in right-to-work states.

Key Points

A rapid scale-up of U.S. electric vehicle production, battery plants, and assembly lines fueled by major investments.

✅ Ford and SK build battery and truck plants by 2025

✅ $11.4B investment, 11,000 jobs in TN and KY

✅ Right-to-work context reshapes union dynamics

One theme of this newsletter is that the world’s physical infrastructure will have to massively change if we want to decarbonize the economy by 2050, which the United Nations has said is necessary to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis. This won’t be as simple as passing a carbon tax or a clean-electricity mandate: Wires will have to be strung as the power grid expands; solar farms will have to be erected; industries will have to be remade. And although that kind of change can be orchestrated only by the government (hence the importance of the infrastructure bills in Congress), consumers and companies will ultimately do most of the work to make it happen.

Take electric cars, for instance. An electric car is an expensive, highly specialized piece of technology, but building one takes even more expensive, specialized technology—tools that tend to be custom-made, large and heavy, and spread across a factory or the world. And if you want those tools to produce a car in a few years, you have to start planning now, as the EV timeline accelerates ahead.

That’s exactly what Ford is doing: Last night, the automaker and SK Innovation, a South Korean battery manufacturer, announced that they were spending $11.4 billion to build two new multi-factory centers in Tennessee and Kentucky that are scheduled to begin production in 2025. The facilities, which will hire a combined 11,000 employees, will manufacture EV batteries and assemble electric F-series pickup trucks. While Ford already has several factories in Kentucky, this will be its first plant in Tennessee in six decades. The 3,600-acre Tennessee facility, located an hour outside Memphis, will be Ford’s largest campus ever—and its first new American vehicle-assembly plant in decades.

The politics of this announcement are worth dwelling on. Ford and SK Innovation were lured to Tennessee with $500 million in incentives; Kentucky gave them $300 million and more than 1,500 acres of free land. Ford’s workers in Detroit have historically been unionized—and, indeed, a source of power in the national labor movement. But with these new factories, Ford is edging into a more anti-union environment: Both Tennessee and Kentucky are right-to-work states, meaning that local laws prevent unions from requiring that only unionized employees work in a certain facility. In an interview, Jim Farley, Ford’s CEO, played coy about whether either factory will be unionized. (Last week, the company announced that it was investing $250 million, a comparative pittance, to expand EV production at its unionized Michigan facilities.)

That news might depress those on the left who hope that old-school unions, such as the United Auto Workers, can enjoy the benefits of electrification. But you can see the outline of a potential political bargain here. Climate-concerned Democrats get to see EV production expand in the U.S., creating opportunities for Canada to capitalize as supply chains shift, while climate-wary Republicans get to add jobs in their home states. (And unions get shafted.) Whether that bargain can successfully grow support for more federal climate policy, further accelerating the financial-political-technological feedback loop that I’ve dubbed “the green vortex,” remains to be seen.

Read: How the U.S. made progress on climate change without ever passing a bill

More important than the announcement is what it portends. In the past, environmentalists have complained that even when the law has required that automakers make climate-friendly cars, they haven’t treated them as a major product. It’s easy to tune out climate-friendly announcements as so much corporate greenwashing, amid recurring EV hype, but Ford’s two new factories represent real money: The automaker’s share of the investment exceeds its 2019 annual earnings. This investment is sufficiently large that Ford will treat EVs as a serious business line.

And if you look around globally, you’ll see that Ford isn’t alone. EVs are no longer the neglected stepchild of the global car industry. Here are some recent headlines:

Nine percent of new cars sold globally this year will be EVs or plug-in hybrids, according to S&P Global. That’s up from 3 percent two years ago, a staggering, iPhone-like rise.

GM, Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota, BMW, and the parent company of Fiat-Chrysler have all pledged that by 2030, at least 40 percent of their new cars worldwide will run on a non-gasoline source, and there is scope for Canada-U.S. collaboration as companies turn to electric cars. A few years ago, the standard forecast was that half of new cars sold in the U.S. would be electric by 2050. That timeline has moved up significantly not only in America, but around the world. (In fact, counter to its high-tech self-image, America is the laggard in this global transition. The two largest markets for EVs worldwide are China and the European Union.)

More remarkably (and importantly), automakers are spending like they actually believe that goal: The auto industry as a whole will pump more than $500 billion into EV investment by 2030, and new assembly deals are putting Canada in the race. Ford’s investment in these two plants represents less than a third of its planned total $30 billion investment in EV production by 2025, and that’s relatively small compared with its peers’. Volkswagen has announced more than $60 billion in investment. Honda has committed $46 billion.

Norway could phase out gas cars ahead of schedule. The country has one of the world’s most robust pro-EV policies, and it is still outperforming its own mandates. In the most recent accounting period, eight out of 10 cars had some sort of electric drivetrain. If the current trend holds, Norway would sell its last gas car in April of next year—and while I doubt the demise will be that steep, consumer preferences are running well ahead of its schedule to ban new gas-car sales by 2025.

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Whooping crane migration near wind turbines shows strong avoidance of stopover habitat within 5 km, reshaping Great Plains siting decisions, reducing collision risk, and altering routes across croplands, grasslands, and wetlands.

Key Points

It examines cranes avoiding stopovers within 5 km of turbines, reshaping habitat use and routing across the Great Plains.

✅ Cranes 20x likelier to rest >5 km from turbines.

✅ About 5% of high-quality stopover habitat is impacted.

✅ Findings guide wind farm siting across Great Plains wetlands.

As gatherings to observe whooping cranes join the ranks of online-only events this year, a new study offers insight into how the endangered bird is faring on a landscape increasingly dotted with wind turbines across regions. The paper, published this week in Ecological Applications, reports that whooping cranes migrating through the U.S. Great Plains avoid “rest stop” sites that are within 5 km of wind-energy infrastructure.

Avoidance of wind turbines can decrease collision mortality for birds, but can also make it more difficult and time-consuming for migrating flocks to find safe and suitable rest and refueling locations. The study’s insights into migratory behavior could improve future siting decisions as wind energy infrastructure continues to expand, despite pandemic-related investment risks for developers.

“In the past, federal agencies had thought of impacts related to wind energy primarily associated with collision risks,” said Aaron Pearse, the paper’s first author and a research wildlife biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in Jamestown, N.D. “I think this research changes that paradigm to a greater focus on potential impacts to important migration habitats.”

Some policymakers have also rejected false health claims about wind turbines and cancer in public debate, underscoring the need for evidence-based decisions.

The study tracked whooping cranes migrating across the Great Plains, a region that encompasses a mosaic of croplands, grasslands and wetlands. The region has seen a rapid proliferation of wind energy infrastructure in recent years: in 2010, there were 2,215 wind towers within the whooping crane migration corridor that the study focused on; by 2016, when the study ended, there were 7,622 wind towers within the same area.

Pearse and his colleagues found that whooping cranes migrating across the study area in 2010 and 2016 were 20 times more likely to select “rest stop” locations at least 5 km away from wind turbines than those closer to turbines, a pattern with implications for developers as solar incentive changes reshape wind market dynamics according to industry analyses.

The authors estimated that 5% of high-quality stopover habitat in the study area was affected by presence of wind towers. Siting wind infrastructure outside of whooping cranes’ migration corridor would reduce the risk of further habitat loss not only for whooping cranes, but also for millions of other birds that use the same land for breeding, migration, and wintering habitat, and real-world siting controversies, such as an Alberta wind farm cancellation, illustrate how local factors shape outcomes for wildlife.

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Olympus Renewable Energy Initiative reduces CO2 emissions by sourcing 100% clean electricity at major Japan R&D and manufacturing sites, accelerating ESG goals toward net zero, decarbonization, and TCFD-aligned sustainability across global operations.

Key Points

Olympus's program to source renewable power, cut CO2, and reach net-zero site operations by 2030.

✅ 100% renewable electricity at major Japan R&D and manufacturing sites

✅ Expected 70% renewable share of electricity in FY2023

✅ Net-zero site operations targeted company-wide by 2030

Olympus Corporation announces that from April 2022, the company has begun to exclusively source 100% of the electricity used at its major R&D and manufacturing sites in Japan from renewable sources. As a result, CO2 emissions from Olympus Group facilities in Japan will be reduced by approximately 40,000 tons per year. The percentage of the Olympus Group's total electricity use in fiscal 2023 (ending March 2023) from renewable energy sources, including green hydrogen applications, is expected to substantially increase from approximately 14% in the previous fiscal year to approximately 70%.

Olympus has set a goal of achieving net zero CO2 emissions from its site operations by 2030, as part of its commitment to achieving environmentally responsible business growth and creating a sustainable society, aligning with Europe's push for electrification to address climate goals. This is a key goal in line with Olympus Corporation's ESG materiality targets focused on the theme of a "carbon neutral society and circular economy."

The company has already introduced a wide range of initiatives to reduce CO2 emissions. This includes the use of 100% renewable energy at some manufacturing sites in Europe, despite electricity price volatility in the region, and the United States, the installation of solar power generation facilities at some manufacturing sites in Japan, and support of the recommendations made by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), alongside developments such as Honda's Ontario battery investment that signal rapid electrification.

To achieve its carbon neutral goal, Olympus will continue to optimize manufacturing processes and promote energy-saving measures, and notes that policy momentum from Canada's EV sales regulations and EPA emissions limits is accelerating complementary electrification trends, is committed to further accelerate the shift to renewable energy sources across the company, thereby contributing to the decarbonization of society on a global level, as reflected in regional labor markets like Ontario's EV jobs boom that accompany the transition.

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Shanghai Electric PEM Hydrogen R&D Center advances green hydrogen via PEM electrolysis, modular megawatt electrolyzers, zero carbon production, and full-chain industrial applications, accelerating decarbonization, clean energy integration, and hydrogen economy scale-up across China.

Key Points

A joint R&D hub advancing PEM electrolysis, modular megawatt systems, and green hydrogen industrialization.

✅ Megawatt modular PEM electrolyzer design and system integration

✅ Zero-carbon hydrogen targeting mobility, chemicals, and power

✅ Full-chain collaboration from R&D to EPC and demonstration projects

Shanghai Electric has reached an agreement with the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (the "Dalian Institute") to inaugurate the Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Hydrogen Production Technology R&D Center on March 4. The two parties signed a project cooperation agreement on Megawatt Modular and High-Efficiency PEM Hydrogen Production Equipment and System Development, marking an important step forward for Shanghai Electric in the field of hydrogen energy.

As one of China's largest energy equipment manufacturers, Shanghai Electric is at the forefront in the development of green hydrogen as part of China's clean energy drive. During this year's Two Sessions, the 14th Five-Year Plan was actively discussed, in which green hydrogen features prominently, and Shell's 2060 electricity forecast underscores the scale of electrification. With strong government support and widespread industry interest, 2021 is emerging as Year Zero for the hydrogen energy industry.

Currently, Shanghai Electric and the Dalian Institute have reached a preliminary agreement on the industrial development path for new energy power generation and electrolyzed water hydrogen production. As part of the cooperation, both will also continue to enhance the transformational potential of PEM electrolyzed water hydrogen production, accelerate the development of competitive PEM electrolyzed hydrogen products, and promote industrial applications and scenarios, drawing on projects like Japan's large H2 energy system to inform deployment. Moreover, they will continue to carry out in-depth cooperation across the entire hydrogen energy industry chain to accelerate overall industrialization.

Hydrogen energy boasts the biggest potential of all the current forms of clean energy, and the key to its development lies in its production. At present, hydrogen production primarily stems from fossil fuels, industrial by-product hydrogen recovery and purification, and production by water electrolysis. These processes result in significant carbon emissions. The rapid development of PEM water electrolysis equipment worldwide in recent years has enabled current technologies to achieve zero carbon emissions, effectively realizing green, clean hydrogen. This breakthrough will be instrumental in helping China achieve its carbon peak and carbon-neutrality goals.

The market potential for hydrogen production from electrolyzed water is therefore massive. Forecasts indicate that, by 2050, hydrogen energy will account for approximately 10% of China's energy market, with demand reaching 60 million tons and annual output value exceeding RMB 10 trillion. The Hydrogen: Tracking Energy Integration report released by the International Energy Agency in June 2020 notes that the number of global electrolysis hydrogen production projects and installed capacity have both increased significantly, with output skyrocketing from 1 MW in 2010 to more than 25 MW in 2019. Much of the excitement comes from hydrogen's potential to join the ranks of natural gas as an energy resource that plays a pivotal role in international trade, as seen in Germany's call for hydrogen-ready power plants shaping future power systems, with the possibility of even replacing it one day. In PwC's 2020 The Dawn of Green Hydrogen report, the advisory predicts that experimental hydrogen will reach 530 million tons by mid-century.

Shanghai Electric set its focus on hydrogen energy years ago, given its major potential for growth as one of the new energy technologies of the future and, in particular, its ability to power new energy vehicles. In 2016, the Central Research Institute of Shanghai Electric began to invest in R&D for key fuel cell systems and stack technologies. In 2020, Shanghai Electric's independently-developed fuel cell engine, which boasts a power capacity of 66 kW and can start in cold temperature environments of as low as -30°C, passed the inspection test of the National Motor Vehicle Product Quality Inspection Center. It adopts Shanghai Electric's proprietary hydrogen circulation system, which delivers strong power and impressive endurance, with the potential to replace gasoline and diesel engines in commercial vehicles.

As the technology matures, hydrogen has entered a stage of accelerated industrialization, with international moves such as Egypt's hydrogen MoU with Eni signaling broader momentum. Shanghai Electric is leveraging the opportunities to propel its development and the green energy transformation. As part of these efforts, Shanghai Electric established a Hydrogen Energy Division in 2020 to further accelerate the development and bring about a new era of green, clean energy.

As one of the largest energy equipment manufacturing companies in China, Shanghai Electric, with its capability for project development, marketing, investment and financing and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC), continues to accelerate the development and innovation of new energy. The Company has a synergistic foundation and resource advantages across the industrial chain from upstream power generation, including China's nuclear energy development efforts, to downstream chemical metallurgy. The combined elements will accelerate the pace of Shanghai Electric's entry into the field of hydrogen production.

Currently, Shanghai Electric has deployed a number of leading green hydrogen integrated energy industry demonstration projects in Ningdong Base, one of China's four modern coal chemical industry demonstration zones. Among them, the Ningdong Energy Base "source-grid-load-storage-hydrogen" project integrates renewable energy generation, energy storage, hydrogen production from electrolysis, and the entire industrial chain of green chemical/metallurgy, where applications like green steel production in Germany illustrate heavy-industry decarbonization.

In December 2020, Shanghai Electric inked a cooperation agreement to develop a "source-grid-load-storage-hydrogen" energy project in Otog Front Banner, Inner Mongolia. Equipped with large-scale electrochemical energy storage and technologies such as compressed air energy storage options, the project will build a massive new energy power generation base and help the region to achieve efficient cold, heat, electricity, steam and hydrogen energy supply.

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