Both sides have reasonable arguments. On the one hand, ZEV mandates are easily gamed. For instance and apologies to Ford, I’m just using it as an example the company could meet its ZEV mandate obligations in Quebec by having its new Mach-E and plug-in Escape represent, say, 10 per cent of it sales. But if the other 90 per cent are all F-150s and Explorers, there hasn’t been much of a CO
2 reduction. On the other hand, Toyota may indeed be correct that a plug-in Prius has a smaller overall carbon footprint than a long-range Tesla mainly because of the emissions released in the production of huge 100-kilowatt-hour batteries but it’s tough to argue that replacing a Ram with a Rivian won’t be good for the environment.