Quebec will ban gas engines in cars starting in 2035 – or sooner?

Quebec, Canada’s second-largest province, passed a bill this week banning the sale of gasoline-powered light-duty vehicle starting in the 2035 model year – a timeline in line with the rest of the country’s ban, but the specifics of Quebec’s are even stronger.

In 2022, Canada unveiled a new emissions reduction plan with a mandate requiring scaling EV sales through 2035, at which point all new cars sold must be zero-emission vehicles.

That rule includes an exemption to allow the sale of plug-in hybrid vehicles, which still have an internal combustion engine, as long as the PHEV meets minimum requirements.

But Quebec decided to do one better, and passed a new bill this week which goes even further. It still has a 2035 target, but it also bans the sale of hybrids and plug-in hybrids.

Quebec is currently leading the rest of the Canada in new EV registrations, making up roughly half of the entire country’s EV sales despite only being a fifth of the country’s population. EVs hold about a 33% market share of new vehicle sales in the province, which is even more than California’s EV market share (Quebec and California share similar environmental philosophies – and even have a cross-border carbon cap-and-trade market).

Part of Quebec’s EV success is due to heavy government incentives through the Roulez vert (“drive green”) program, though the government recently announced a temporary suspension of that program, and incentives will be cut in 2025 and eliminated in 2027.

It also competes for the cleanest electricity in Canada, with 94% hydropower and 5% wind power (Manitoba and Prince Edward Island also have ~99% renewable electricity grids).

So it’s a great place for an EV – and Quebec’s new bill recognizes that and turns it into law.

The specifics are that, as of Jan 31, 2034, Quebec will disallow the advertisement or sale of any model year 2035 light-duty vehicle with a combustion engine.

The ban also applies to used vehicles past model year 2035, thus disallowing import of cars from other provinces that might have more lax requirements than Quebec’s. This used car requirement not only protects Quebec’s law from the possibility of more lax laws in other provinces, but also from potential meddling by Canada’s federal government.

While Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s long-running Liberal government has made climate change a priority, a potential future conservative government (which seems likely to come in the next year) might work to sabotage those efforts at improving the environment. If that does happen, Quebec’s provincial law would still apply.

Then later, on Dec 31, 2025, the sale or lease of new vehicles of model year 2034 or earlier would be banned. This later timeline will help allow dealerships to clear out inventory of older model vehicles.

It even applies to combustion engines themselves – you won’t even be able to sell the engines, unless it’s to replace an engine in a vehicle that’s already on the road.

The new law only applies to light-duty vehicles, not to medium/heavy duty vehicles or off-road vehicles like ATVs and snowmobiles (which are often run on two-stroke engines and are extremely noisy and high-polluting).

Quebec’s left-wing party, Quebec Solidaire, had requested that the timeline be set to 2030, rather than 2035 (something we’ve called for before, asking “why not sooner?” about California and Europe’s 2035 target). But the government was worried that not enough EVs would be available to supply Quebec’s market by that time.

However, there will be a chance to adjust this timeline. The bill directs the provincial government to analyze the market in 2026 and 2030, and potentially adjust the timeline for 2035 compliance. It’s possible that, if Quebec is way ahead of schedule, a 2035 timeline could be moved forward (after all, Norway came within shouting distance of its goal 3 years early). Maybe this is wishful thinking from this EV publication, but we’ll have our fingers crossed at least.

Update: We contacted the Quebec Department of the Environment, Wildlife, Parks, and the Fight against Climate Change, and received some clarification. First, it gave no comment on the possibility of adjusting the ban forward if there is rapid progress towards it, instead stating that “the government has always been firm on the 2035 timeline.”

Second, it shined light on its mentality around banning PHEVs, stating that it does not plan to limit credits granted to PHEVs between now and 2035 and views them as a useful transitionary technology, but that Quebec’s 2050 carbon neutrality objectives and the 12-15 year lifespan of vehicles necessitates that the province stop putting new gas engines on its roads by 2035. It also stated that PHEVs will always have a cost disadvantage due to their inherent complexity, and that it would be better to focus on full EVs, echoing the International Council on Clean Transportation’s position on the matter (which has repeatedly shown in studies that PHEVs are dirtier than we thought).

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