Canada may have hit its long-awaited electric vehicle turning point
CBC
Electric car advocates are waiting to see spending details in this week's federal budget, but for the first time, pro-EV business leaders and economists are expressing new optimism that Canada's move away from internal combustion vehicles may have reached a turning point.
After years of excuses, there are signs that a conjunction of forces is pushing the country into a technological and social revolution that has been compared to going from horse to automobile and will bring affordable electric cars and trucks to roads and parking spaces across Canada.
High gasoline prices, a gradual increase in the price of carbon and a request by European powers for the world to use less fossil fuels to break Russian leader Vladimir Putin's grip on their economies, are pushing us in that direction. A series of technological developments that have made electric vehicles not just as good as internal combustion vehicles but better and cheaper to run have helped make it possible.
Now, if only drivers ready to make the switch could find one on the lot to buy.
According to the founder of Canadian media start-up Electric Autonomy, Nino di Cara, the only missing piece of the puzzle is that automotive manufacturers and dealerships simply haven't been stocking and selling enough EVs.
"There is already a huge amount of consumer interest and demand," said di Cara in a phone interview last week.
As gas prices soar there have been many reports of surging orders for electrics that the industry has not been able to satisfy. But di Cara notes that it is not a recent problem.
As I reported myself well before the recent supply chain headaches, despite repeatedly prompting that I was looking for a really fuel-efficient car, the salesman at a local lot did not mention the hybrids or electrics the company sold. And when asked directly, he was discouraging, saying they were very expensive and hard to get. What kind of salesman discourages you from buying something expensive?
The new federal plan is intended to solve that reluctance, insisting that in order to sell internal combustion vehicles, salespeople must also move a certain percentage of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) off the lot as well.
The scheme has been proven to work, not just in California, a leader in what's called the ZEV mandate, but also in British Columbia and Quebec where sales are more than triple the rate in Ontario and more than 10 times EV sales in Saskatchewan. (B.C. and Quebec also offer higher rebates.)
In an extensive CBC interview last week, industry representative Brian Kingston, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, raised many of the standard industry concerns. Making electrics is expensive. Charging networks are not yet complete. Government tax incentives are too low.
WATCH | More charging stations, incentives needed to speed EV switch:
Clearly there has been a strong business case for most car makers to sell as few electric cars as possible. Although he later changed his position, the late head of Fiat Chrysler, Canadian Sergio Marchionne, once begged customers not to buy the company's electrics because he said he lost money on every one the company sold. As he complained in 2014, in order to sell the cars as the government required, he had to lower the price far below the additional cost of the EV technology that went into them.
As a businessman himself, Nino di Cara is sympathetic to the challenges faced by an automotive industry facing radical changes that don't pay off in the short run.