Transportation and the Environment — 17 August 2016 (41st Legislature, 1st Session)

CTE 2016-08-17

Quebec — Committees

Finally, Bill 104, as

currently constructed, cannot be complied with as compliance holds the

manufacturer responsible for the registration of the vehicle in order to earn

credits, as opposed to the sale of the vehicle to its independent retail

dealer.

That

said, if the Government remains resolute in the passage of Bill 104, CMAC

has a number of recommendations, which are not

exhaustive, for amendments to Bill 104 that we believe are necessary.

Recommendation

No. 1 : We believe that the legislation must be amended to require Hydro-Québec to install an additional 1,370 charging stations by 2018 to

accommodate the extra 13,625 electric vehicles anticipated under Bill 104

for 2018. This is commensurate with the 10

to 1 vehicle-to-charging station ratio outlined by the European clean fuels

directorate.

Recommendation

No. 2 : We recommend that the Québec Government

maintain a consumer demand oriented incentive program for electric vehicles through

2025 or until such time as cost parity exists between electric vehicles and

conventional internal combustion engine vehicles.

Recommendation

No. 3 : We recommend that the credit values outlined in the cost-benefit

analysis be adjusted upwards for both battery electric vehicles and plug-in

hybrid electric vehicles, but especially for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, given that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles traditionally

have comprised 55% of all vehicles sold in Québec.

Recommendation

No. 4 : We recommend that changes to

section 13 be made to mirror the

language in California to ensure that manufacturers can

actually comply with the obligations under the legislation.

Recommendation

No. 5 : We recommend that the legislation be amended to require ministries

and crown corporations to

purchase electric vehicles in volumes at least commensurate with the expected

percentage volumes of electric

vehicles for each of the years covered by the legislation, as outlined in

Table 5 of the cost-benefit analysis, when replacing their vehicle

fleets.

Recommendation

No. 6 : We recommend that an additional mechanism be established by the

Government to allow manufacturers

that are not currently in a position to comply with the legislation the

opportunity to purchase credits at a reasonable cost per ton.

Recommendation

No. 7 : We recommend that

section 64 of Bill 104 be changed to

substitute the 2019 model year for the 2018 model year to facilitate an additional year of early action

credits for compliance and to provide more lead time for additional PEVs

to enter the marketplace to earn the necessary credits for compliance.

Recommendation

No. 8 : We recommend that

section 6.1 of the bill be amended to

facilitate the ability to generate credits for

compliance through other additional mechanisms.

summary, Québec is already, by far and away, the

leading jurisdiction in Canada with respect to electric vehicle sales, with almost half of the

nation's electric vehicles sold here. Likewise, Québec is a leading jurisdiction in North America for electric vehicle sales with higher cumulative

sales in all but seven of the 50 U.S. States, and only two of those States,

California and New York, of

those seven States... have a zero-emission vehicle mandate.

consideration of the fact that the cost-benefit analysis prepared by the

Government shows greater costs than benefits for seven

of the eight years of the draft standard and considering that there are other

options available to the Government to achieve the same, or more, GHG

reductions and reductions of other pollutants, CMAC submits that Bill 104 achieves neither its purpose, nor

does it pass the test of regulatory appropriateness. The members of CMAC do not

believe that a zero-emission and vehicle supply legislation is necessary and do

not support government interventions specifying

the means to achieve the overall objective : greenhouse gas emission

reductions. Nonetheless, CMAC members view

vehicle electrification as an important component

of a suite of options to not only meet increasingly stringent greenhouse gas emission regulations, but

also to facilitate the necessary movement to lower carbon propulsion options

for their products to ensure long-term viability in a carbon-constrained

global economy.

Moreover,

the automotive industry's manufacturers and dealers and the Québec Government can ill afford to move forward with a legislation that

distorts the automotive retail marketplace in Québec, such that consumers go out of the province to purchase vehicles they wish to buy, or

which undermines the residual value of electric vehicles... owners that have previously purchased vehicles in good faith,

as dealers are forced to deeply discount new electric vehicles forced

into their inventory in order to sell them.

Constructeurs mondiaux d'automobiles du Canada appreciate the opportunity to provide our comments on Bill 104. Merci pour votre attention.

Président (M. Bérubé, Matane-Matapédia) : Merci pour votre exposé. Nous allons maintenant

commencer la période d'échange. M. le ministre, la parole est à vous.

M. Heurtel : Merci, M. le Président.

Bonjour et merci pour votre présentation ainsi que votre mémoire.

Ma première

question. Déjà, bon, on a eu des présentations d'intervenant hier ainsi que,

bon, des données puis des expériences qu'on a entendues dans l'élaboration...

puis dans la dernière année et demie où on a réfléchi au projet de loi n° 104,

et l'expression qui est revenue régulièrement, et elle est revenue encore hier, c'est que, et le mot est faible... l'expression est faible, dis-je, c'est une

véritable course à obstacles pour un consommateur de pouvoir se procurer un

véhicule électrique au Québec.

Comment

réagissez-vous puis comment vous voyez ce genre de jugement là et de constat

là, qui semble être assez généralisé,

que c'est très difficile pour les consommateurs qui veulent se procurer des

véhicules électriques de pouvoir le faire au Québec?

Le Président (M. Bérubé, Matane-Matapédia) :

M. Adams.

M. Adams (David) : I think you're right, there are

difficulties and there are challenges. It's a new technology, it's not familiar to maybe most people, except for those that are

very interested in the technology.

think it represents a challenge at dealerships certainly in terms of both staff

training and then also the time it takes to sell an electric vehicle. It takes more time

through the educational process to make people familiar with the technology.

It's not like a traditional vehicle, where

we are used to buying them, you don't have to explain the technology, except

for somebody that's buying a car maybe for

the first time. So, there's a whole education process that needs to be

undertaken. We believe that we have a

responsibility with that. We believe that the Government also has a

responsibility in that role as well.

And there are tools out there currently, and one that we've been working with,

Mogile Technologies, is a Montréal-based

company which actually has a tool that can be utilized in dealerships to

facilitate that education process both for the consumer and for the

dealers to streamline that process.

So, yes, it's not without its

challenges, it is still a new technology, but there are ways to address that.

M. Heurtel :

Alors, nous comprenons également... Vous dites, si je vous comprends bien, que,

bon, il faut plus d'éducation, plus

de temps puis le gouvernement a une part de responsabilité dans le

développement. Et puis nous sommes tout

à fait d'accord, puis c'est pour ça qu'on a mis en place, dans le cadre de

notre Plan d'action sur l'électrification des transports, une série de mesures pour développer les véhicules

électriques au Québec, et, notamment, bon, il y a le rabais, à l'achat, de 8 000 $; il y a également les

programmes de financement des bornes de recharge tant à domicile qu'au lieu

de travail; il y a tout le travail

qu'Hydro-Québec fait avec le gouvernement pour développer le circuit

électrique; on a même des ententes

avec le Vermont pour développer le circuit électrique; l'accès aux voies

réservées. Bref, le projet de loi n° 104 s'inscrit dans un ensemble de mesures, dans un ensemble de stratégies,

puis c'est pour ça aussi qu'on se donne un deux ans, et on prévoit qu'en

2018 il y aura plus de bornes de recharge, il y aura plus d'éducation.

Puis il

y a aussi les véhicules. Si on

regarde, par exemple... bon, la

semaine dernière, j'ai eu la chance

d'aller à Détroit, j'ai visité le

centre de recherche en électrification de General Motors. La Bolt, qui est sur

le point de sortir, bien, elle va

avoir plus de 300 kilomètres d'autonomie, puis là ça, ça dépasse de loin

la Volt, qui, elle, a 80 kilomètres environ d'autonomie et un moteur hybride. Alors, on voit que la technologie fait des grands pas. Puis je cite General Motors, mais il y a

d'autres constructeurs, évidemment, qui font également de grands pas. Ce

que j'essaie de voir, c'est... dans le fait qu'on a clairement une évolution, qu'on se donne deux ans pour y arriver, qu'on va

pouvoir compter justement les années modèles 2016, 2017 dans le total de 2018, j'ai du mal à réconcilier ça

avec votre affirmation que 2018, c'est trop tôt pour pouvoir permettre, justement, au marché d'éclore véritablement, surtout quand on parle... Bon, on a Bloomberg qui nous dit qu'on est sur le point de véritablement avoir une explosion en termes

de ventes de véhicules électriques et

que donc les mesures que le gouvernement met en place, accompagnées d'une norme VZE, pourraient justement

permettre, là, de franchir ce dernier obstacle, ce dernier point de

bascule pour nous permettre, là, de véritablement passer à une nouvelle

époque puis à une nouvelle ère en termes de véhicules.

M. Adams (David) : I guess, Minister, what I would say is that

Québec already is a leader in North America. You're

in the top 10% of sales jurisdictions without a sales mandate. I think you're

already achieving your goal of being a leader in the zero-emission

vehicle space. With respect to the time, I think, you look at what is happening

in the United States, when they were looking

at the 2018-2025 zero-emission vehicle program, they started that discussion in

2012. You know, we're talking now of

having a discussion in 2016 about, you know, a law that will come in place and

be effective for the 2018 model year. So, in my view, it's not

reasonable to say : OK, you know, in the U.S., we had six years to

potentially look at this program. We're going to give you two years and hope

for the best.

think what you need to do is to look at... again, if we're going to look at

what happened in the northeast States, they certainly

had a longer period of adjustment to move into this type of zero-emission

vehicle legislation, and we should be considering

that as well. It's hard to basically import a standard when the conditions for

the application of that standard are neither the same as California's nor the same as in the northeast

States.

M. Heurtel : Le projet de loi n° 104 fait

partie d'une stratégie beaucoup

plus globale de lutte contre les changements climatiques, et, là-dessus,

tant la position du Québec

que l'ensemble des pays et des États du monde... ça, là-dessus, c'est non

négociable. Et, l'entente de Paris l'a confirmé, on doit absolument réduire le réchauffement planétaire d'ici 2050 de

façon très importante, et les mesures qui sont

prises par le Québec s'inscrivent dans cette

démarche-là. Et, quand on considère que la

principale source d'émissions de gaz à effet de serre au Québec provient du secteur des

transports, que c'est 43 % et qu'une proportion importante provient

des véhicules, je vois que, d'un côté, votre association

n'est pas d'accord avec l'instauration d'un système bonus malus, vous exprimez des réserves

importantes par rapport au projet de loi n° 104.

Alors,

ma question, c'est :

Document details

Collection	Quebec — Committees
Citation	CTE 2016-08-17
Type	committee
Volume / chapter	en travaux parlementaires commissions cte 41 1 journal debats CTE 160817.html
Language	en
Format	html
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	5d7ea2096689d03a39f70f9fe2430a843678d548

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