Number of electric vehicles on N.B. roads doubles after incentive introduced

The number of electric vehicles on the road in New Brunswick is up to 1,932, but well short of the 2,500 target set out in the former Climate Change Action Plan.

The number of electric vehicles on New Brunswick roads has doubled over the last year.

In July of 2021 the province announced it would offer a rebate of up to $5,000 for EV purchases, matching an already existing federal incentive program. Since then the number of EVs in the province has doubled, sitting at 1,932 as of Sept. 30, the head of New Brunswick’s Climate Change Secretariat told a legislative committee Wednesday.

“One of the things that we have seen is by having the incentive in place in New Brunswick, we have seen an uptake in electric vehicles,” said Jeff Hoyt.

The province’s former Climate Change Action Plan called for 2,500 EVs to be on the road by 2020, a target that was missed by a wide margin with just 470 as of March 2020.

An updated plan expresses EV targets differently, focusing on a percentage of vehicle sales, rather than a raw number, calling for EVs to make up six per cent of all vehicles sold by 2025 and 50 per cent by the end of the decade.

Hoyt says EVs currently make up about 2.3 per cent of sales, up from around 1 per cent before the incentive was introduced.

Part of the growing number is an increase in availability. While supply chain issues continue to make battery-powered vehicles difficult to access — Green MLA Kevin Arseneau says he is facing a two-year wait to purchase one — Hoyt says that putting the incentive in place has helped to grab New Brunswick a piece of the vehicles available.

“What we know is that if we have incentive programs and if you’re a jurisdiction that is ‘EV friendly’ you will attract electric vehicles to your jurisdiction,” he said.