this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025

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Canada’s tariff wall on Chinese electric vehicles is deepening dependence on the U.S. (theconversation.com)

submitted 1 week ago by otters_raft@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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[–] Mavvik@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Nobody is making choices for you. You make your own choices to drive, I am just saying that you can make another choice that would be better for the environment, better for your health, and far cheaper than buying an EV.

is your personal time and effort worthless? How much is an extra hour of your time spent pedalling a bike worth to you?

I find the time and effort spent riding a bike to get places pretty enjoyable and I think a lot of other people too do. Plus it means less time needed at the gym. I dont know where you live, but most people live within 5 km of grocery stores, shops, etc. Which is maybe a 15 to 20 minute bike ride, not an hour. I somehow doubt an extra ten or fifteen minutes to go somewhere is going to ruin your day.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Nobody is making choices for you.

The story is literally about tariffs on cars.

I am just saying that you can make another choice

Of course I can. I could choose to walk everywhere barefoot. I'm not going to, though, for the reasons I've explained.

Plus it means less time needed at the gym.

I don't spend time in a gym anyway. I am fit enough and I have better uses of my time and money. Most people don't go to a gym.

I dont know where you live, but most people live within 5 km of grocery stores, shops, etc. Which is maybe a 15 to 20 minute bike ride, not an hour.

In other comments in this thread I've mentioned there's a grocery store very close to where I live, it's about 5 minutes to bike there. But I don't, because even when the weather is nice I still need to haul groceries.

[–] Mavvik@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

In other comments in this thread I've mentioned there's a grocery store very close to where I live, it's about 5 minutes to bike there. But I don't, because even when the weather is nice I still need to haul groceries.

So its not a time issue for you? You just dont want to carry groceries on your bike?

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I physically can't carry the groceries on my bike. You're making a lot of assumptions about people here.

[–] Mavvik@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Panniers? Baskets? Trailers? E-bikes? You already said you have a bike so unless you cant ride it, there are plenty of solutions to that problem

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You have no idea how much groceries I purchase.

This whole thread you've been telling me all about what I should be doing with my time, my resources, my life. You know nothing about it but you're keen to tell me how I should live it. Have I told anyone "no, you should ditch your bike and use a car instead?" No. People should use whatever form of transportation works best for them, based on their own needs and opinions.

[–] Mavvik@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You've just been listing reasons why you cant ride a bike for anything. Just say you dont want to ride a bike.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Here's the comment where I acknowledge that yes, I physically could ride a bike. I could spend hours out of my day pumping pedals to haul cargo around. It would be exhausting and waste a ton of time but I could theoretically do it.

What else do you want me to do? You seem very free to tell me what I should be doing with my time and effort, what else am I doing wrong with my life that you know better about?

Or maybe my time and comfort is worth more to me than satisfying you, and that's fine because different people have different priorities. Go ahead and pedal everywhere, let neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop you. It stops me. If you want me to bike everywhere then you'll need to offer some kind of solution to those things, the way that cars already solve them for me.

[–] JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I've just read through this exchange between @Mavvik@lemmy.ca and yourself. It is rather humorous the assumptions being made.

You've said you live minutes from the grocers, then go on to change the argument stating you'd be riding hours a day more than you could drive. Comparing an apple to an orchard is a touch disingenuous. You are right in that it's arduous to do a big shop on a bike. But when living within a stone's throw of the most commonly visited store, you just go every few days instead of twice a month. Being so close, it's hardly a more time consuming venture.

It's all good though, you keep driving. Honestly this post is a poor place to try and get people interested in replacing car trips with bike trips. Though when it comes to a "waste of time", it does bring to mind the difference in life expectancy between the inner city driver and bicyclist.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You've said you live minutes from the grocers, then go on to change the argument stating you'd be riding hours a day more than you could drive.

The grocers are not the only place I go. Today I actually spent two hours driving to and from a roleplaying game I play with a group of friends, for example. I give a lift for one of them, and pick up food for the rest on the way there. This would have been impossible on a bike.

But when living within a stone's throw of the most commonly visited store, you just go every few days instead of twice a month.

You're being rather free with adding a bunch of things to my schedule, aren't you? How do you know I have time to do a grocery trip every few days? Once again, I have more things going on in my life than travelling to and from a grocery store.

[–] JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There's no malice here. I wasn't saying you specifically should be making smaller and more frequent stops at the grocery. I was only meaning that's how it's done when not getting such a large quantity of food at once.

Your example of picking up a friend is perfectly valid. That takes a more specific bike set up than something standard with a rack on the back - at least to do comfortably. Beyond teenage years, I don't see people doubling up on handlebars anymore. That said, there are many 'off the shelf' solutions available for transporting both a shopping trolley worth of groceries and an additional person across a city. Saying something is 'impossible' is a little short sighted.

I'm sure driving about works just fine for your lifestyle specifically. For myself, it takes longer to drive across my city than to ride to the same destination. I wasn't trying to talk you into trading your car for a bike. I was only making a suggestion about the most common trip people take in case you hadn't thought of it.

I don't mean this rudely, but it's not as though you and I know one another personally. I have no vested interest in what you do. I was just chiming in to share an alternative perspective. After all, isn't variety is the spice of life?

Cheers

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I wasn't saying you specifically should be making smaller and more frequent stops at the grocery.

You said exactly that. You also said I was being disingenuous.

[–] JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I see why my comment gave that impression. When I wrote:

But when living within a stone's throw of the most commonly visited store, you just go every few days instead of twice a month.

I wasn't using 'you' in the specific, I was using it in the general sense. I should have written "one just goes". That would've made my meaning more clear. If I had said it verbally it would have been obvious by inflection, though text is so often a poor analog for speech.

Anyway, insofar as the disingenuity, yes. Making a straw man argument is disingenuous. Talking specifically about grocery trips then shoehorning in every other errand under the sun isn't a good faith argument.

Regardless, it's good of you to give a lift to friends to go meet the group. One less car on the road contributing to traffic congestion.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Talking specifically about grocery trips then shoehorning in every other errand under the sun isn't a good faith argument.

And as I've said in other comments, going to the grocery store isn't the only thing I do in my life. Not everything is about the exact circumstances of how I keep the pantry stocked. I do a lot of things with my time so every use of that time is a tradeoff against those other things. If it takes an extra hour each week to shop for groceries, that's an hour I don't get to spend on other things that I value. I'm not a grocery-shopping robot designed only for grocery shopping.

I'd buy one of those if they were available, frankly, and thus save even more of my personal time to do things I consider more important. And then people would complain at me even more about the resources I was "wasting." But they're my resources and at a certain point having people telling me I'm bad and wrong for how I use them gets offensive.

[–] JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

You aren't unique in this. Everyone does things beyond grocery shopping. I don't see suggestions that you should take to the dentist, the hardware store, the cinema all on a bike. It's all been about something we all do: groceries. If you took the bike to pick up the milk, your car doesn't get sold out from under you while you're away. If you like pens and use a pencil to sketch something, it doesn't mean you can never use pens again.

Going on about all the other things a car benefits you for is irrelevant when the conversation being had was about one specific circumstance. Now I'm not sure what to think about your statement on going for groceries two or three times a week would cost you an extra hour. If you live so close to the shop, that surely wouldn't be the case. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes I'd figure, unless you're spending quite some time in the store? I'm in and out in ten minutes going a couple times a week because I'm not filling the pantry in one go.

At multiple points in this thread, suggestions have been flatly rejected for reasons of false 'impossibility' and other responsibilities procluding car alternatives. None of what's been suggested has been meant to have you sell your car and solely go with a bike. Replacing one or two trips a week on a bike is fine and reasonable, and very possible for anyone living within a short distance of something as common as a grocery store.

Now I will take a note from @Mavvik@lemmy.ca and bid you adieu. But if nothing else, consider you may be best served in hiring a delivery service in lieu of shopping yourself. Or perhaps toss the car in the river and get a real grocery-getter.