Summer travellers in northern Ontario say it's a hassle to find electric vehicle stations

As electric vehicles gain in popularity, there's increased pressure for northern Ontario to accommodate drivers with the required infrastructure.

This summer, many drivers are complaining about a lack of EV charging stations in the region and chargers that are in disrepair

Jeff Hill, who owns a Hyundai Kona Electric, said fast chargers were hard to come across while travelling from Ottawa to Sudbury.

"That's the biggest worry for us," Hill said while topping off his car at a fast-charge EV station at a Petro-Canada along Regent Street in Sudbury.

Hill and his partner, Janis Lalonde, said they had to pass a few chargers that were either down or occupied by other EVs for a longer period.

They took their Kona Electric on a last-ditch run to another charger 150 kilometres away.

Hill added that charting out long-distance trips from one charger to the next isn't a guarantee.

"You can't be sure that you're going to have a working charger when you get to the destination."

Tesla-exclusive fast chargers and the Combined Charging System (CCS) are some of the most common stations drivers can come across that can recharge vehicles at varying speeds.

Stations with plugs below 50 kilowatts (kW) typically charge cars at slower speeds, while others between 50 and 250 kW are faster.

According to EV charging map website PlugShare, there were four working fast-charging stations available in Sudbury at time of publication.

Some parts of northern Ontario, including Manitoulin Island, do not have fast-charging stations installed.

Ken Shields, an organizer of the Electric Vehicle Association of northern Ontario, said a lack of reliable and abundant chargers during the summer leads to EVs being towed.

"The reliability of the network must follow the build of the network, and that doesn't seem to be the case," he said.