Quebec Plans To Ban The Sale Of New Gas-Powered Cars – Here Are The Latest Details
We're supposed to get new regulations soon.
A car comes down a street in Quebec City while pedestrians walk the sidewalks.
"The sale of 100% new all-electric vehicles is upon us," Benoit Charette, Quebec's Minister of the Environment and the Fight Against Climate Change, declared in February 2022. The province has set a goal to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035 and is already laying the legal groundwork.
It also hopes to ramp up sales of electric vehicles with a plan to have 1.6 million, about 30% of all road vehicles, on the roads by 2030.
As of the last update on March 31, 2022, the province had achieved 8.56% of the 2030 goal.
Quebec also plans to have 4,500 Hydro-Québec-financed standard charging stations by 2028, and 2,780 public fast charging stations by 2030.
As of March 31, 2022, the province achieved 7.24% of its goal for standard charging points (326 in total).
On the same date, there were already 643 public fast-charging stations in Quebec, 23.13% of the target number.
The electrification of other forms of transport is in the works, too. By 2030, Quebec aims to decarbonize 40% of all taxis, 55% of urban buses and 65% of school buses.
Despite seemingly paltry progress, the government claimed in December 2022 that it was still on track to meet its goals. And Charette suggested Quebec has laid the groundwork for more significant advances in the years to come.
"In the space of a year, the government has doubled the number of regulations and the amounts invested, and it has put in place the conditions necessary to double the resulting reductions in greenhouse gas emissions," he said in December.
The National Assembly passed a law in April 2022 empowering the minister of the environment to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 "at the latest." The ministry says Charette has also "committed to develop and publish the regulations specifying the terms of the ban by the end of 2024."