One of the absolute best things I ever did for our household finances was to ditch virtually all of our gas-burning devices/vehicles. We’re down to one HEV (my wife’s car) as our only gas burner. My BEV replaced both our old ICE vehicle and our portable gas generator. Ensured our lawn mower and yard tools are all battery operated. That one HEV is the last gasoline albatross around our neck, and so we only use it for my wife’s commute.

We’re closer than ever, and I look forward to the day her car is paid off and we can replace it with another BEV, and get off the gasoline trampoline forever. If I never have to buy another litre of gasoline in my lifetime, it will still be too soon.

The problem with this analysis is that the “EV mandate” was never an “EV mandate”. It didn’t stipulate that only EVs could be sold after 2035 — it always also permitted other forms of Zero-Emissions Vehicles (and PHEVs with a minimum battery-only distance (80km IIRC?)) — including Hydrogen vehicles.

And Hyundai’s interest in hydrogen is just hedging its bets. They have one hydrogen model (the Nexxo), but multiple EV models. And if the number sold in Canada isn’t zero, it’s likely pretty close. They can be as interested as they want to be, but global sales are abysmal, hydrogen availability is low, the hydrogen is expensive, the hydrogen isn’t always green, and storage and transportation are significant challenges.

It doesn’t matter who is “interested” in hydrogen — it’s still not happening. But it was always allowed by the “EV mandate”, so it wouldn’t need to be cancelled for any MOUs.

Hydrogen isn’t going to happen. So stop holding your breath.

Beyond all of the other problems with hydrogen (production, transportation, storage, dispensing, etc.) the economic truth is that hydrogen vehicles are, at best, 60% efficient. And hydrogen production either relies on fossil fuel production (for “grey” hydrogen), or electrolysis (“green” hydrogen). Electrolysis itself is only about 66% efficient.

This efficiency matters in this comparison because when you put 100 units of energy to get 66 units of energy out, and then put that into a vehicle that can only transform that into around 40 units of motive power, you will always do better putting that energy into an EV which is 95% efficient (you put in 100 units of energy and get 95 units out). In terms of cars, you can charge more than twice as many cars with this input energy as you’d be able to with hydrogen. There is no world where that makes any sort of economic sense for anyone.

With hydrogen vehicles, you get a vehicle that needs a lot more energy to go less distance. It’s the worst of all worlds. And that’s just discussing the efficiency values — and not all the losses that occur during all the transfer stages. Hydrogen needs to be kept cryogenically cold (which also requires more energy to maintain) — in effect, there is no possible work in which hydrogen replaces a modern EV.

What the fuck is a guy living up in Nunavut supposed to do with an electric vehicle?

Nothing - which is why the existing mandate ALLOWS THE SALE OF PHEVs PAST 2035.

Your whole post just screams “tell me I didn’t read the mandate without telling me you didn’t read the mandate”.