Canada was once in the fast lane to an electrified future of transportation, but the journey has taken a different road in 2026. The EU has decided to slow down, too. And the U.S shifted into reverse, by some measures.
An analysis by Canadian news portal CBC noted that despite these shifting policies, there are more emissions-free vehicles on the road that ever before — jumping to 60 million in 2025 from just 26 million in 2022, according to numbers from the International Energy Agency, crunched by Our World in Data’s Hannah Ritchie. As a result, the benefits of EVs are now more measurable than theoretical.
Recent research published in The Lancet Planetary Health looked at California — a state notorious for its snarling, polluting traffic, yet notable for its leadership in EV adoption in the U.S.
“As we looked within a neighbourhood over time — and the number of zero-emission vehicles has gone up — we then wanted to see: did air pollution go down?” said lead author Sandy Eckel, an associate professor of biostatistics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
The pollutant was nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which, among other sources, comes from tailpipes. High levels of NO2 are linked to short- and long-term respiratory issues, even premature death, and it can be especially bad for children with asthma. Reducing the number of cars burning fuel has worked out in Paris, as an example, to lower NO2 concentrations.
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