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Quebec refuses to reinvest in Lion Electric

ccppurcell

Wait I don't understand is this just an excuse? Is this a slightly more subtle example of an "anti" movement being emboldened by what's happening in the US, despite the same legal framework not applying? Like the anti abortionists in Europe are on the rise. Or is there a legitimate reason that it depends a bit on US policy?

passwordoops

Nothing "anti" about this decision. The province's credit rating was recently downgraded (1). Investing in a struggling local company that had a dim outlook even before the US election (2) would be a tough sell.

1. https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/sp-global-lowers-que...

2. https://globalnews.ca/news/10673318/lion-electric-300-more-l...

lmz

Reliant on exports to the US?

perbu

Yeah, but aren't these bussed mostly subject to state policy and not federal policy?

satanfirst

If there is a federal tariff on Canadian vehicles that applies then everyone including states has to decide if they want to purchase what they intended or keep the budget they planned.

ZeroGravitas

I read it as the opposite. A business that's already in trouble that has cross border entanglements in the current climate and can't get private support is a perfectly reasonable time for a government to cut off money.

The only bit where slowing electrification comes up is the first sentence, which felt like an attempt to spin fallout from Trump chaos as people waking up to the folly of electrification instead.

ccppurcell

Yeah that's what I hoped but there wasn't much discussion of the company in question.

jimbob45

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watwut

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pluc

We just completely lost all investments in Northvolt so the government is being very careful with high profile investments into renewables, especially when we've bankrolled them before and they couldn't deliver.

Animats

They'll have to buy from BYD, like everybody else.

xethos

I'm sitting in a battery-electric bus from New Flyer this very minute. BYD is hardly the only bus OEM around

rsynnott

There are _loads_ of electric bus manufacturers; many of the big incumbent manufacturers, at least in Europe, literally have the same chassis in electric and non-electric versions. My local bus system uses these, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_StreetDeck#StreetDeck_E... - they're available in plain diesel, light hybrid, hydrogen, and electric.

Here's another example, available in diesel, plugin hybrid, electric, and _natural gas_: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Dennis_Enviro400_Cit... (my local system uses the hybrid version of these).

Even for double deckers, which are a bit of a niche and really mostly only used in Ireland and the UK in Europe, there are at least four big manufacturers, only one of which is BYD.

sudosysgen

Quebec (ARTM/STM) already uses electric buses from Novabus (Volvo), so no.

jagger27

Which Canada currently tariffs at 100% (long predates Trump’s scheme).

cwillu

“Long predates” is overstating it, the 100% tariff was put in place in october 2024, following the u.s.'s lead.

euroderf

Was there some policy reason to follow the US lead ? Follow the Leader does not sound like a valid rationale.

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Kon-Peki

> Public Auction Due to closure of US EV Manufacturing facility – Short Notice!

https://workingmancapital.com/auction/lion-electric-chicago-...

plorg

Huh. I suppose that bus contract probably does make up a sizeable amount of their business. I last saw them at a trade show where they had their class 5 and 6 cab over truck chasses. There was a huge push for EV package delivery, for which that size was ideal. Their offerings looked pretty polished compared to the competition. I would think the CARB rules (and those in the other states that follow CARB) would stir a bit more demand for Lion's product offerings, but I can see what Quebec would be hesitant about such a company operating internationally in the r current political environment.

mg

Electric buses are not just about the environment.

They are also so much more comfortable.

Less noisy, less rattly.

I would think it makes society healthier to have quieter, less annoying ways to commute.

hedora

Also, they produce less soot, nox and carbon monoxide for the kids to breathe.

n_ary

The best thing about EBs is, they do not hum and vibrate so much making it feel like the bus is about to transform into some Decepticon bot any minute now.

sudosysgen

Quebec already has electric city buses built in partnership with Novabus and Hydro-Quebec, they are pretty widespread in Montreal.

This is something else, a startup that I've only ever seen schoolbuses from.

OsrsNeedsf2P

They're also more expensive, so cities buy fewer of them, leading to more cars on the road, worsening the problem

mg

Only more expensive in terms of the initial purchase price. Maintenance and energy costs are much lower than for a gasoline bus.

snkzxbs

Until you have to change the battery a few years later and it’s cheaper to buy a new bus.

akadruid1

This isn't true:

> Our results indicate that today's electrified bus fleets are roughly cost comparable to their traditional diesel counterparts

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X2...

chneu

Even if they cost a bit more, they are more reliable, better for the environment and air quality, and are so much quieter.

0xbadc0de5

Government should not be backstopping poorly run companies from the consequences of their failure to execute. That will only encourage further irresponsibility.

JumpCrisscross

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epistasis

> pursuit of dignity

Could you explain that a bit more? I don't see it.

jaggederest

I can't speak for the poster above, but someone over the years explained the rise of nationalist movements as largely being based on creating a sense of self worth in people who feel marginalized. It's an emotional reaction to troubling times that puts reassurance ahead of rational behavior, as explicitly rejected in many anti-enlightenment writers.

So, being charitable with the OP, I can see how you might say that conservatives in the US believe that the US's declining status in manufacturing created a world in which "a hard working guy can't get ahead any more because everything is made in China", and thus a perception that in order to create equity and dignity we have to return to internal self reliance, ala juche or autarky.

ljsprague

Half a million extra deaths of despair over the last twenty years or so.

https://www.takimag.com/article/deaths-of-despair/

>"But the more I study the White Death of the past two decades, the more I am instead reminded of the tragic trajectory of a now much less publicized American race, Native Americans. Like American Indians, working-class white Americans seem to be living, and dying, like a defeated people, quietly offing themselves with so little to-do that nobody even noticed what was happening to working-class white lifespans for the first fifteen years of this century."

TulliusCicero

The sad thing is, investment into new manufacturing was actually up -- WAY up -- under Biden, as you can see in this chart: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRMFGCON

Now that Trump is president, looks like it's starting to decline again.

catlikesshrimp

Whenever I tried to explain that quote is true anywhere in the world, it was never well received.

"a hard working guy can't get ahead any more because xyz"

It is ironic there are many very hard working guys in China, Philipines, Vietnam ...

dukeofdoom

Fact is that service jobs don't pay as well, or well at all, and some not even not enough to live on your own, or enough to save for retirement, or to start a family. This resentment is from the young working class males, and the rage is building. You can look at the election in Canada, to see how the younger people voted, and its totally opposite of the boomers they increasingly want to MAID. Populism isn't necessarily bad, It's what gave birth to America. Raging hillbillies rebelling is kind of a thing though out humanity. But particularly successful in America, thanks to the constitution it spawned. And probably many more examples since ...

bnolsen

Tariffs are bad if you are the United States and tariffs are good if you are any other nation.

impossiblefork

I think this is actually the precise correct thing.

If the EU instituted tariffs on let's say, software and certain kinds of services, then we would reduce our unemployment, develop those sectors etc.

Whereas the large-scale oil trade and how its conducted in practice mean that non-Americans will be holding dollars and that the US will be able to have lower interest rates than its competitors, this money, which the US thus can sort of print cheaply can then be used to buy goods from abroad, to get high-quality products in a way that is effectively cheap.

So tariffs for the US were always something that would shake things up. I don't think they're necessarily terrible in the very long run, but this system is something like 50 years old and the US won't be able to switch to a sensible system where it itself actually builds real things and gets what it needs that way quickly. So switching to a sounder approach to production should probably have been allowed to take more time if disruption was to be avoided, but it wouldn't have been possible for political reasons, and now the US politicians are sort of flip-flopping because they see that this transition will not be smooth at all.

If it were almost any country other than the US it would have been a different matter. If the EU wanted to reduce import of finished goods from low-wage countries, that would probably be fine and would probably benefit ordinary people without a long transition, but the US is a different matter. Wages in the US are as high as they are in large part because of these weird trade and investment flows.

Propelloni

Correct, if you are living in the USA. As someone living in Germany I would think tariffs levied by the EU and/or Germany are bad for me, because it is going to raise prices in the EU and Germany.

I'd wish that the EU would just shrug at the tariffs and not counter them, at least not on consumer goods, because in the end US tariffs cost the US consumer not the EU consumer. Obviously it is not that easy, because of jobs, refusal to be insulted and bullied, etc.

epistasis

Can you connect that statement to the pursuit of dignity?

brookst

Not GP, but I think I see what they mean.

Trump and his base are very focused on “respect”; remember all the lies about Obama’s “apology tour” (or was that Biden? Or both?)

All the bluster, all the talk of “America being respected again”, which anyone who travels internationally knows is 100% the opposite of reality, all the classic strongman politics. The creepy looming over Hilary in the debate.

All of it is a wildly misplaced sense of machismo, like being a dangerous asshole someone commands respect.

Which is ultimately what that crowd wants; they want to behave badly and still be respected.

My take, anyway.

_JoRo

I think a lot of it is: feels good to think that you're smarter than most than to acknowledge the reality that you're probably not.

My intuition is that this type of thinking is becoming more and more entrenched in American culture. I think by the time the culture as a whole wakes up, things will be significantly worse and many of the people who tried to prevent it will have been pushed out or willfully left.

stevenwoo

It looks like Lion Electric has factories in Canada and the USA. Maybe they see continued investment as a sunk cost fallacy sort of situation, with the current tariff volatility and the debts of the company but it's a short article.

I think that attitude only covers a portion of Trump voters and might not be applicable to the Quebec decision but don't have any concrete data, Asimov's 1980 opinion piece on the USA may be more relevant to Trump voters and reflects most of the executive orders and appointments in 2025 so far: There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

tyre

Jia Toletino’s “The History of a Generation in Seven Scams” makes this point about the US. We have a long history, almost a pride, in con artists. It’s not repulsive. It’s almost culturally alluring the be scammed.

parineum

That phrase is a lot like one of those phrases that isn't technically racist but a lot of racists say it.

That phrase is often used by the upper class to justify their habit of telling the lower classes what's good for them and, frankly, is exactly what's led to them being willing to cut off their nose to spite their face.

watwut

Right now, cult of ignorance perfectly describes Trump and his supporters. It is just true.

yieldcrv

Fiscal responsibility isn’t inherently an extreme right wing concept, but I understand that the overton window has shifted on many people who didn’t realize they were now on the right

Retric

Not anymore, the Republican party flip flopped on that issue declaring “deficits don’t matter” and been wildly reckless with spending for decades.

dragonwriter

Fiscal responsibility isn't a right-wing concept at all, but invoking deficit concerns as a dodge for substance on particular issues that they lack popular support on otherwise is a common practice of the American Right (who have an equally common practice of exploding the deficit when in power.)

Tostino

It has been way more common for Republican administrations and Congress to explode the deficit than when the Dems controlled things.

Consistently, for longer than I've been alive.

olalonde

If there's any upside to Trump's tariff shenanigans, it's that they have turned a lot of Democrats into passionate free traders.

arrosenberg

Are we pretending Clinton democrats were not passionate free traders before?

dmos62

Why is free trade good? Isn't competition easily attacked via subsidation, for example, if trade is unregulated (why Chinese cars are not bought in EU)?