Quebec just cut its EV mandate, and the province’s own numbers say what it costs.
The rule took effect on September 3. It was published in the Gazette officielle on August 19. Quebec’s zero-emission vehicle mandate, which sets the share of credits carmakers have to earn each year, was revised down across the whole horizon.
- 2026: 32.5 percent becomes 26
- 2027: 45 becomes 30
- 2028: 60 becomes 35
- 2029: 75 becomes 44
- 2030: 85 becomes 51
- 2035: 100 becomes 80
The 2030 line is where it really bites. Taking 85 percent down to 51 is most of the decade’s ambition.
Quebec’s environment ministry put a figure on the effect itself, in its own regulatory impact analysis: about 800,000 fewer zero-emission vehicles on the road in 2030, and 1.4 million fewer in 2035. That number is the government’s, not an advocacy group’s.
If you are reading this from outside Quebec, here is why it travels. Quebec has one of the largest EV fleets per capita in North America, and electricity that costs roughly a quarter of gasoline for the same distance. If the mandate gets softened here, where the math already works, it gets easier to argue for softening it everywhere else.
I’ll say where I stand: I am against this rollback. That changes nothing about the numbers above, they all come from the government.
What is your province or your state doing with its own mandate right now?
Sources: Gazette officielle du Québec, August 19, 2026 · Quebec environment ministry, ZEV standard page and regulatory impact analysis