Canada keeps vehicle GHG rules flat to 2029; England eases home charging

Three electric-vehicle stories from October 20 and 21, 2026: Canada and Ontario paired $2.5 billion for auto plants with a plan that keeps Canada's vehicle emissions standards at 2026 levels through 2029, England stopped requiring planning permission for home chargers whose cable runs under the pavement, and Chery showed a charger that Chinese coverage rates at 1.44 MW.

Canada keeps its vehicle emissions standards at 2026 levels through 2029

Canada's greenhouse gas emissions standards for new light-duty vehicles will stay at 2026 levels through the 2029 model year, with annual increases resuming in the 2030 model year, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced on October 21, 2026. The same action plan adds $2.5 billion over two years for automotive capital projects, $1.5 billion from Ottawa and $1 billion from Ontario, so manufacturers can invest in modern machinery and upgraded production lines "to build the connected and electric vehicles of the future." The auto measures sit inside an $8.7 billion package billed as a response to U.S. tariffs, in which the new Joint Steel Action Fund accounts for $5.22 billion of five-year commitments, by our arithmetic.

The number being held is a fleet average of 172 grams per mile, according to the backgrounder from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and increases resume in line with the target of 75% EV car sales by 2035, which it equates to 74 grams per mile. The backgrounder says keeping the standard there gives manufacturers "near-term flexibility" and lets them generate greenhouse gas credits for use in later years. The backgrounder frames the capital money as up to $1.5 billion federal and up to $1 billion provincial.

Flat is where the rules already stood, by Environment and Climate Change Canada's account. Its August 15, 2026 proposal to repeal the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard, the EV sales mandate, modelled current regulations on the assumption that the 2026 fleet average standards "have an overall fleet average value of 172 g/mile and remain constant through to 2050." Stronger standards, it said, "would be proposed through a future regulatory amendment," and its illustrative case put them in place starting in 2028. The October 21 plan puts the first increases in the 2030 model year, two years after that illustration, and neither October 21 document says when the amendment will be proposed. On the demand side, requests under the federal EV purchase incentive fell 14.3% in the third quarter from the second, by our arithmetic.

Cross-pavement chargers in England no longer need planning permission

Households in England no longer need planning permission to install a home charger whose cable crosses the pavement to the car, as of October 21, 2026, which the Department for Transport says will save drivers up to £300 on installation and open up home charging for as little as 2p per mile. Residents without off-street parking can then plug into cheaper domestic electricity, Buses and Local Transport Minister Simon Lightwood said.

What a household now needs is a channel in the pavement. Under the amending order, in force the same day, wherever a footway lies between the charger and the car, the charging cable must cross it "by means of an authorised cross-pavement solution": a pavement-embedded cable channel installed by, on behalf of, or with the authorisation of the highway authority. The planning office drops out of the process; the highway authority stays in it. The order extends the permitted development rights for wall-mounted outlets and charging upstands, which previously applied only in areas lawfully used for off-street parking. A new outlet on a wall that immediately adjoins a highway must not protrude more than 0.2 metres and must leave at least 1.5 metres of footway to the carriageway, and the new right for the rest of a home's curtilage allows one outlet and excludes conservation areas.

The government also launched two consultations, open to December 16, 2026: one on charging access for tenants and leaseholders, and one on Part S of the building regulations, the charge point rules for new buildings and major renovations, which proposes extending them to covered car parks, reviews the £3,600 cap on installation and invites wider changes. New York is working the same no-driveway problem from the curb, with 600 new city curbside charging points over three years.

Chery shows a megawatt-class charger

Chery showcased Volt-dragon Ultra-Fast Charging at its Global Innovation Conference in Wuhu, China, the company said on October 20, 2026, alongside a vehicle-to-grid demonstration station that combines solar generation, battery storage and megawatt-level charging in a local microgrid. Chery plans to build 20,000 V2G-enabled stations worldwide by 2029, including in markets with developing electricity infrastructure.

The English release gives no power figure beyond "megawatt-level". The numbers come from Chinese coverage of the conference. Sina Auto reported that the system, built with CATL, supports 1,500 A, has a system power of 1.44 MW and adds 500 km of range in five minutes of charging, with the charging gun and cable under 2 kg and immersion liquid cooling. CarNewsChina, citing Sina Finance and Xia Liao Che, reports that Chery promises a 10% to 97% charge in 6 minutes 50 seconds, says it is opening 100 Volt-dragon stations in 10 cities across China, and has not said which vehicles the 500 km figure applies to.

Neither headline figure in this corner of China's charging contest is stated per connector. Sina calls Chery's 1.44 MW system power and CarNewsChina calls it peak charging power; Geely said in September its new station delivers peak charging power of up to 2,250 kW, without saying whether that is per connector. What has been published does not show whether the two are measured the same way.