Most weeks, Leanne Hers drives an hour-plus from her home in Richmond, B.C., to Chilliwack to care for her grandchildren. With the current sky-high gas prices, each trip now costs the retired elementary school teacher about $60 in her 2010 Volkswagen Beetle, an expense she would like to eliminate.
She’s on wait lists for two different electric cars — a Prius Prime plug-in hybrid and a fully electric Chevy Bolt.
“I just can’t afford the ‘Bug’ anymore,” said Hers. “The turning point was when (gas) went from $1.90 to $2.10.”
“I’ve been told it will be six to eight months for the Prius Prime and eight months for the Bolt,” she said. “At this point, it’s going to be whoever calls first.”
Blair Qualey, president and CEO of the New Car Dealers Association of BC, said the global microchip shortage is making it tough for car dealers.
“All brands are impacted by this supply chain issue but we are seeing a pronounced impact on zero-emission vehicles, which are extremely popular and in demand by consumers in B.C.,” Qualey said.
Across Canada, the wait times for EVs can be between 12 and 18 months, said Joanna Kyriazis, clean transportation program manager for Clean Energy Canada, a think tank based out of Simon Fraser University.
“Since March, we have seen gas prices skyrocket, which has pushed more Canadians to seriously consider electric vehicles to help insulate their wallet from these $2-a-litre gas prices,” Kyriazis said.
“EVs are increasingly being seen as not only a solution to climate change, but also a way to address some affordability issues that Canadians are facing.”
Saving money on fuel is a big reason Canadians are opting for electric cars, a March 2022 AutoTrader survey found.
For Hers, the appeal is strictly financial.
The hybrid Prius would cut the cost of each trip to Chilliwack in half, while the Bolt would reduce it to about $8 for the charge, she said.
B.C. government rebates, which offer up to $8,000 per electric vehicle purchase, were a big part of the attraction.
“Without the rebate, we couldn’t afford it,” Hers said. “I’ve never owned a new car before in my life.”
Larry Boldt, vice-president of the Mid-Vancouver Island Electric Vehicle Association, did an informal survey of Vancouver Island car dealers on June 16 to find out the wait times for electric cars. Most of the wait times he discovered were between six and eight months, but some, such as for the Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck or the Hyundai Ioniq, were two years or longer.
In the first three months of 2022, EVs made up 17 per cent of all new cars sold in the province, said Kyriazis. The number of EVs on B.C.’s roads increased by 1,600 per cent to 85,000 in the past six years, the provincial government says.
![Here's a dedicated parking spot for an electric vehicle. But don't hold your breath — Canada has an EV supply problem right now. Photo by Noya Fields/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)](/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_lg_1x/public/img/2022/06/24/35653508706_68af088a1f_k.jpg?itok=x7sCX0hW)
Kelowna lawyer Tom Eaves, 44, was also lured by the rebate and the cost savings.
“The price of gas kept on going up. We hoped it would be somewhat better for the environment,” Eaves said. “Electric cars don’t need a lot of maintenance and we figured we could have this car for at least a decade and it would last us that long.”
Eaves is on a wait list for a Hyundai Ioniq 5 and has been told it could take as long as 18 months for the car to arrive.
Eaves and his family, including two children aged two and four, moved to Kelowna three months ago. His local dealer sold out the wait list for the Ioniq’s 2023 model year and is now taking names for the 2024 model. That means Eaves doesn’t know exactly how much he will have to pay for it or what colour it will be, but he’s willing to take that chance.
“(The rebate) makes it more competitive to buy than a gas car,” Eaves said.
Gary Morris, who lives in Edmonton, said the fuel savings nearly pay for an electric car, over time, if you drive enough. Morris owned a Tesla Model 3 until last week when he “lucked out” and got a new Tesla Model Y after only a three-month wait. If he ordered it now, the wait would be closer to six months, he said.
Morris drives a lot, taking his 11-year-old son to BMX races throughout Alberta.
“We have solar and some free charging at work so it all adds up to a pretty affordable setup. I kind of hate paying anyone anything. To me, it's better to be solar and EV so you're much more independent,” Morris said in an email interview.
In the past, he paid up to $550 a month in gas, and more for maintenance and oil changes, he says.
“EVs definitely don't work for everyone and we're lucky to be able to make these kinds of money choices. Lots of people can't. But honestly, it's nowhere near as expensive as many people think,” he said.
In B.C. and Quebec, there is a mandate on automakers to sell an increasing percentage of EVs each year, hitting 100 per cent by 2040, a target that will be pushed up to 2035. The federal government has a similar goal.
That mandate pushes automakers to increase supply in those two provinces, Kyriazis said.
She would like to see the federal government’s goal formalized into a mandate that would introduce financial penalties for not selling a certain percentage of EV cars.
“... That’s going to be a real impetus to make sure they are prioritizing the Canadian market when they are figuring out where to send and sell their EVs,” she said.
Kyriazis is optimistic Canada can reach its goal of all new cars sold in 2035 being zero-emission vehicles.
“I think it’s ambitious but realistic… Canadians want to go electric. They’re ready to do it. They’re knocking down doors, with some people willing to wait three years to get their hands on an electric vehicle,” she said.
“Now we need to solve Canada’s EV supply problem.”
Comments
Switching from billions of ICE cars to billions of EVs is not a green solution.
Another technological fix that isn't.
Millions of people commuting hundreds and thousands of kilometres per week is an environmental nightmare.
Does Clean Energy Canada work for the auto industry?
Why is public transit not even mentioned in this article? Why is public investment in sustainable transportation options not on the table for discussion?
Public transit, cycling, and walking are our only sustainable transportation options. In cities and neighbourhoods designed for people not cars. Which means living near your place of work, shopping, schools, church, recreation opportunities, and other amenities.
A world in which grandmothers travel 220 km every week to babysit grandchildren and fathers chauffeur their offspring around Alberta is not sustainable either.
Eight billion people on the planet and counting. If half the population commutes hundreds and thousands of kilometres per week in two-tonne metal behemoths, energy use and ecological footprint go off the scale. The lifestyle and unlimited mobility North Americans feel entitled to — unimaginable for most of history — are ecological non-starters.
Invest in public transit, end sprawl, and design cities for people, not cars.
Cars and trucks are not a sustainable answer for our transportation needs, no matter what powers them.
EV subsidies mainly funnel scarce tax dollars to the wealthy — disadvantaging people who cannot afford or choose not to drive.
Giving EV subsidies to wealthy people who don't need them while ignoring the transportation needs of people who cannot afford cars or choose not to drive is unjust.
We need to minimize the role of EVs (private cars) and maximize the role of public transit.
EVs have a huge footprint. Car culture drives urban sprawl. Neither is remotely sustainable.
Cars wouldn't be green even if they ran on fairy dust. Much of that footprint is embedded in mining and manufacture of materials. About half of the energy used over the lifespan of a car is expended during its production. Using two tons of metal to transport a 150 lb human being is an ecological non-starter.
If your electricity derives primarily from burning fossil fuels (Alberta), that makes EVs even less attractive. (Big hydro projects are not green, either.)
Halving our emissions but doubling the number of cars (in developing world) gets us precisely nowhere.
Cars drive sprawl, and sprawl drives cars. Sprawl forces people to drive everywhere they go. Once people get in that habit, it's hard to break. Obscene energy expenditure. Lost productivity, sedentary lifestyle (and health problems), millions of deaths and injuries, roadkill, and social isolation.
Disintegration of community, loss of green space, endless freeways and traffic jams, inefficient public transit, lost productivity, strip mall blight, mega-mall culture, parking lot proliferation, accidents, and property damage.
Insanely long commutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Sprawl multiplies congestion, energy consumption and waste, time and productivity loss, emissions, and footprint.
In perpetuating sprawl, EVs exacerbate the problem and obstruct real solutions. A one-Earth footprint cannot accommodate an energy-intensive lifestyle where people drive everywhere they go -- or an urban model relying on millions of cars to transport millions of people.
You're right, and yet you're also wrong.
What are EVs not a solution to? Well, sure, they're not a solution to our dysfunctional society. And they're not a solution to our massive broader ecological impact. But could we keep our eye on the ball here? EVs DON'T BURN FOSSIL FUELS. Climate change is here, right now, and weaning people off cars is not happening in a relevant time frame, while shifting to electric cars IS. If all the cars being sold were electric, three important things would happen. First, a whole lot of CO2 emissions would disappear. Second, oil companies would lose a huge amount of political power, making lots of other things easier to do. Third, with electric motors the norm, there would also be a natural shift towards electric buses, delivery vans, tractors, massive mining vehicles and so on and so forth, putting us on track to disappear a whole lot of other emissions.
Even if/when we make a massive shift towards public transit, there will still be roads, and vehicles driving on them. You can't put railways everywhere. Best if those vehicles don't burn fossil fuels, yes?
Finally, while it's true that for instance when the CCS salesdroids yack about using all options it's complete bullshit because effort you put into one thing is taken away from putting effort into other things, I don't see that kind of exclusivity operating with electric cars. I don't think doing electric cars makes it harder to build transit, and I don't think pushing electric cars in specific is depleting any political capital that environmentalists or anyone else who wants to stop climate change needs for other purposes. To the contrary, it's happening without that much pressure, but the perception of winning on this issue should actually strengthen the perception of the power of pro-climate-change-action groups . . . and in politics, PERCEPTION of power largely IS power. If people think you have power, they listen when you talk, and then you have power because they listened when you talked.
So I really don't see how success in shifting to electric cars is either useless or obstructing any other success.
EVs burn fossil fuels in Alberta — and in all other regions still burning fossil fuels for power.
As previously noted, about half of the energy used over the lifespan of a car is expended during its production. Much of that footprint is embedded in mining and manufacture of materials. Still heavily reliant on fossil fuels.
Plastics derive from fossil fuels.
Large EVs have a bigger carbon and ecological footprint than smaller ICE cars. The larger the range, the bigger the battery, the heavier the vehicle, and the worse for our environment.
Canada boasts the worst fuel economy in the world. Why? Because Canadians prefer large vehicles and trucks.
Prof Jeremy Michalek, director of the Vehicle Electrification Group at Carnegie Mellon University: "EVs are not currently a panacea for climate change…lifecycle GHG emissions from electric vehicles can be similar to or even greater than the most efficient gasoline or diesel vehicles [in the US]."
A 2016 study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology: "Larger EVs can have higher lifecycle GHG emissions than smaller conventional vehicles."
"The size and range effect: lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of electric vehicles" (Environmental Research Letters)
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/5/054010
"Why big tech won't solve our transit woes" (Rabble)
The "three revolutions" hailed by Big Tech: A proliferation of personal electric vehicles, then ride-hailing services, and eventually autonomous or self-driving vehicles. Real solutions or illusory?
"Transit remains far less polluting on a per-passenger basis than personal automobiles. It takes an estimated 100 personal electric vehicles, for example, to achieve the same 'environmental relief' that a single sixty-foot electric bus provides. Thus a billion Teslas will not solve climate change. Each of those cars has an enormous carbon footprint from the components mined from the earth and the energy-intensive processes needed to create it.
"The 'three revolutions' will only bring worsened inequality, more sprawl, dangerous streets, and even less accessibility."
• https://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2020/05/why-big-tech-wont-solve-our-tra…
Union of Concerned Scientists: "We found that battery electric cars generate HALF the emissions of the average comparable gasoline car, even when pollution from battery manufacturing is accounted for."
• https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-cycle-ev-e…
Halving emissions but doubling the number of cars (in developing world) gets us precisely nowhere.
EVs shift carbon emissions upstream from consumers to automakers, battery manufacturers, mining companies, and power utilities. If consumers choose large vehicles with large battery ranges, and more cars are produced for a growing population, the result may be more carbon emissions, not less.
@Rufus Polson: The comparison with ICE vehicles depends on vehicle and battery size.
www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2017/dec/25/how-green-are-e…
"Factcheck: How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change" (Carbon Brief, 2019)
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tac…
"A recent working paper from a group of German researchers at the thinktank Institute for Economic Research (ifo) found that 'electric vehicles will barely help cut CO2 emissions in Germany over the coming years'. It suggests that, in Germany, 'the CO2 emissions of battery-electric vehicles are, in the best case, slightly higher than those of a diesel engine'.
"Other recent studies of electric cars in Germany have reached the opposite conclusion. One study found that emissions from EVs have emissions up to 43% lower than diesel vehicles. Another detailed that 'in all cases examined, electric cars have lower lifetime climate impacts than those with internal combustion engines'.
"These differences arise from the assumptions used by researchers. As Prof Jeremy Michalek, director of the Vehicle Electrification Group at Carnegie Mellon University, tells Carbon Brief, 'which technology comes out on top depends on a lot of things'. These include which specific vehicles are being compared, what electricity grid mix is assumed, if marginal or average electricity emissions are used, what driving patterns are assumed, and even the weather."'
It remains true that "all EVs produce fewer emissions over the lifecycle than conventional cars of the same weight class, and this holds true even when the electricity grid that powers them is mostly generated by fossil fuels."
"...But, the lack of regulation differentiating between EVs effectively encourages carmakers to sell cars with bigger batteries and longer ranges.
"...many EVs produced today feature a range that is too high, and the trend is towards even bigger batteries.
"...The uncomfortable reality is that battery manufacturing plays a bigger role in lifecycle emissions than anything else the carmaker does.
"...regulators should not encourage this race to sell EVs with bigger batteries. "It's a race, but it's a very stupid race. It's not towards a good solution. If you switch from oil to cobalt and lithium, you have not addressed any problem, you have just switched your problem.
"...petrol-engine cars weighing just 500kg — such as the French Ligier microcar or some popular "kei cars" in Japan — emit less lifecycle emissions than a mid-sized EV even when driven in France, where carbon-free nuclear power generates three-quarters of electricity.
"If we really cared about CO2, we'd reduce car size and weight."
• https://www.ft.com/content/a22ff86e-ba37-11e7-9bfb-4a9c83ffa852
"A few more inconvenient truths about EV CO2 emissions"
"Tesla battery production releases as much carbon dioxide as eight years of gasoline driving
"According to [Michael Sivak, of the University of Michigan's Sustainable Worldwide Transportation laboratory], building a BEV results in 15% higher emissions than manufacturing a similarly-sized conventional automobile.
"For larger vehicles — cue Teslas and upcoming Porsche/Audi products — with larger batteries, the difference is even greater; 68%. Indeed, according to a recent Swedish report, Tesla battery production releases as much CO2 as 8 years of gasoline driving. Yes, according to the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, manufacturing every kilowatt-hour of lithium-ion battery storage — the Model S has up to 100 kW-hr — releases 150 to 200 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere. In other words, a Model S has accounted for about 17.5 tons of C02 even before it has used a mile of coal-fired electricity."
• https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/motor-mouth-a-few-more-inconvenient-t…
"What's become clear is that EVs have become better, but they are still not good. Nor should we expect them to be; after all there are bound to be major environmental consequences of a lifestyle that demands a personal vehicle(s)."
• http://prairieclimatecentre.ca/2018/02/can-electric-vehicles-solve-the-…
@ Rufus Polson: Sprawl makes efficient public transit impossible. In perpetuating sprawl, EVs obstruct the problem and delay real solutions. No solution to sprawl except to hit the brakes.
Pouring billions (trillions?) of dollars into EVs and charging infrastructure, and exacerbating sprawl, makes efficient public transit systems impossible. Doubling down on EVs and sprawl sidelines ultimate solutions permanently.
There will be no bus to take.
Handing out EV rebates to people who don't need them fails to address the fundamental inequities of our transportation system, in which the poor and people who choose not to drive face long walks to bus stops, decreased service, unsafe conditions, and fewer routes in a system starved of resources. As their affluent and oblivious neighbours drive past in Tesla Model 3s. Meanwhile, empty buses tour suburban neighbourhoods, because no one who can afford a car will take transit.
Climate change solutions that entrench structural inequity in society, the exclusion of marginalized groups, and and social exclusion fail our most vulnerable citizens.
We have a choice: the public good — or private benefits for the few, while perpetuating the same ills that cars culture has inflicted on society for decades.
The decisions we make now about urban design set the blueprint for generations to come. Doubling down on automobiles makes already difficult problems intractable and puts solutions out of reach.
EVs take us down the wrong road.
Climate solutions that guarantee other environmental disasters are no solution at all.
Climate change is not our only problem. Electrification is not the solution to everything. The focus on emissions reductions via EVs to the exclusion of other environmental and social equity issues — not to mention far more effective climate solutions — is short-sighted and self-defeating. Ill-considered climate solutions are liable to do more harm than good. We need a holistic vision for sustainable cities.
"Even if fossil energy were replaced at once by clean sources, our other problems — overpopulation, overconsumption, erosion, deforestation, and accumulating waste — would still persist."
"Ronald Wright: Can We Still Dodge the Progress Trap?" (The Tyee)
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/09/20/Ronald-Wright-Can-We-Dodge-Progr…
What you write is correct Geoffrey. For me, as a rural resident who works outside the house too an EV allows me to get around without the noise and stink of an ICE. I can also make my own power because I have lots of room. I want to see nothing more than a public van that goes down my rural road every two or three hours, and a passenger rail service worthy of the name. We are a long way from that right now, and getting there will be difficult and taker a long time. So it's an EV for me, for now.
Thank you Geoffrey for bravely defying the received opinion fueling this EV advertorial. Socially-correct Pollyannaism on the subject of EVs is so ingrained on the political left that it's difficult to even start a contrary discussion----even armed with the facts as you are. We as a society have to face that we are in for difficult times even if we stop emitting CO2 tomorrow. And we will have to consume less. Few want to stop travelling, to live in a smaller home, to eat less meat, to hold on to the same phone for years at a time. But here we are.
I don't recall advocating in favour of sprawl, or against changes to zoning. Can you point to anywhere I did that? And I don't see how agitating for the continued use of internal combustion cars, which in effect is what you are doing, makes it easier to advocate for changes to zoning or reduced sprawl. They are two different topics. You can be on the right side of both. I am. You're not.
And again, even if we do all the changes to zoning, that will make a difference to urban and suburban consumer use of transportation. But there will still be rural areas, and there will still be products being transported to all the walkable non-sprawly new-urbanism suburbs so that when you walk to the shops on their high streets, there will be something in them. Public transit is very good and we need much more of it, but it is not a solution for all use cases.
There will still be vehicles travelling on roads, no matter how astonishingly good we make our urban planning. Fewer, sure, but still quite a lot.
You apparently want those vehicles to be powered by gasoline. That is a terrible idea.
Yeah, I've read some of that stuff about EV production emitting CO2. It is silly. It is no doubt true, right now, if you cherry-pick your production facilities and generally tweak the numbers a bit.
But where are all those CO2 emissions from EV production COMING FROM? They are coming from the fossil-fuel-powered electricity production that supplies the electricity on which the factories are run, and they are coming from the fossil-fuel-powered vehicles transporting the raw materials, parts, and so on. So as we move to renewable power, half those emissions go away. And the shift to EVs will itself make the other half go away. It's literally the case that many of the emissions from EV production are caused by the fact that we haven't yet shifted to using EVs. This is simple and obvious, and most of these studies are very likely financed by the fossil fuel lobby in hopes of dividing their opponents--mainly pitched towards that subsection of the environmental movement that really hates the idea of any technology turning out to be useful.
There used to be a claim going around that we shouldn't shift to solar or wind power because you need to use fossil fuels to make solar panels and wind turbines. This is an updated version of the same thing.
RP wrote: "I don't recall advocating in favour of sprawl, or against changes to zoning. Can you point to anywhere I did that? And I don't see how agitating for the continued use of internal combustion cars, which in effect is what you are doing, makes it easier to advocate for changes to zoning or reduced sprawl."
I don't recall advocating in favour of internal combustion cars. Can you point to anywhere I did that?
And I don't see how agitating for the continued use of cars, which in effect is what you are doing, makes it easier to advocate for ending sprawl.
My argument is against car culture, regardless of power source, and urban sprawl, fuelled by the private automobile. Urban blight, massive congestion, lost productivity, car accidents, roadkill, social segregation and isolation, sedentary lifestyles, loss of green space and agricultural lands.
Dire problems for which Mr. Polson offers no solution.
As previously noted…
Cars drive sprawl, and sprawl drives cars. The two go hand in hand. Car culture determines urban design, and design determines mobility options.
Sprawl forces people to drive everywhere they go. Once people get in that habit, it's hard to break.
In a world without cars, insanely long commutes become impossible. Take away cars and freeways, and sprawl is no longer an option.
Try cycling from your home in the suburbs 25 km to work downtown and back every day. How many people are going to do that? No one.
In perpetuating sprawl, EVs exacerbate the problem and obstruct real solutions. A one-Earth footprint cannot accommodate an energy-intensive lifestyle where people drive everywhere they go -- or an urban model relying on millions of cars to transport millions of people.
If you advocate car culture (regardless of power source), you are advocating sprawl.
"In Canada's three largest urban centres, the distant suburbs (30 minutes or more from downtown) grew at a faster pace than the urban fringe and suburbs closer to downtown, further evidence of the ongoing urban spread. … Further urban spread also raises environmental concerns such as CAR-DEPENDENT CULTURES and encroachment on farmlands, wetlands and wildlife."
StatsCan: "Canada's large urban centres continue to grow and spread"
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220209/dq220209b-eng.htm
In 2021, nearly three in four Canadians (73.7%) lived in one of Canada's large urban centres (pop. > 100,000). (StatsCan).
Two thirds of Canadians live in the Windsor – Quebec City corridor.
The next biggest population concentration is in BC's Lower Mainland.
Three quarters of Albertans live along the Edmonton — Red Deer — Calgary corridor.
All populous regions can be well served with public transit options. But it will require massive public investment, not subsidy of private options. We have a choice to make — and only one of them is sustainable.
Public transportation is no less viable in smaller centres. Any town can support a transit system.
Small rural towns can also benefit from public/mass transportation, both locally and to larger towns and cities.
EV trucks and rail can handle intra- and inter-city transport of goods. For smaller packages in local zones, bike transport also works in season. (I did not advocate transit as "a solution for all use cases" — a straw-man argument.)
Globally, cities are home to up to 50% of the world's population. (2021)
They consume 75% of the world’s energy and produce 80% of CO2 emissions.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/04/29/news/nobel-summit-builds-ma…
A world of sprawled, bloated cities filled with billions of cars is not remotely sustainable. A nightmare vision. The solution? Public transit in smart cities designed for people, not cars.
@Rufus Polson: Once we train people to use cars — and make car use artificially cheap through subsidies (visible subsidies for EVs; invisible subsidies for road use and sprawl) — drivers are unlikely to give up their cars for transit.
Sprawl make public transit inefficient, if not impossible. Private automobiles make public transit an under-funded option for people who don't drive and lack political power and representation: the poor, the young, and the old. Mass transit begins with "mass".
RP wrote: "agitating for the continued use of internal combustion cars"
Straw-man argument. Nowhere do I advocate for ICE vehicles and fossil fuels. For the masses, there are better options.
Above, I clearly advocate for public transit, cycling, walking. In cities and neighbourhoods designed for people, not cars. Which means living near your place of work, shopping, schools, church, recreation opportunities, and other amenities. The only sustainable option.
In a world of EV cars, there is no economic or political incentive to pursue sustainable options. No incentive to address the litany of environmental, health, and social problems associated with car culture and sprawl (see long list above) beyond urban air quality and emissions. The voting public remains happily ensconced in their shiny metal boxes.
In the world Mr. Polson envisions, cars and trucks proliferate endlessly. Massive energy and resource consumption, waste and (mining) pollution. With all the problems of sedentary car culture listed above. All you have done is switch the power source. Inefficient, costly public transit is reserved for the disadvantaged minority who can't afford cars.
With a footprint of 5 planet Earths, the richest nations would need to reduce energy and resource consumption by 80% merely to live at the limit of the planet's biocapacity — one Earth. EVs take us in the wrong direction.
It is no doubt true that upstream industrial emissions will fall as industry electrifies. But that is not an argument for mass adoption of EVs.
There is a better, healthier, cheaper, less energy- and resource-intensive option with a far smaller footprint: Mass electrification of industry + mass adoption of public transit, supplemented by even better active transportation modes such as cycling and walking. That is where public dollars should go. No handouts to the privileged who don't need subsidies.
A world of EVs in sprawled cities put our only sustainable options out of reach.
"Another working day has ended
Only the rush hour hell to face
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
Contestants in a suicidal race"
(Synchronicity II by The Police)
The Federal and Provincial governments really need to get on rebates for used EVs. If you really want to switch to electric, buy used. It's even better for the environment than a brand new one, and if you have the money for a brand new one, you can potentially afford a used one.
There truly is a growing market for used EVs, and it would be good to include this fact in future articles.
I was fortunate enough to buy a Chevrolet Bolt in 2018. It was the most expensive item I had bought in my life. Until now, it has saved me more than $15,000 in fuel alone. There has also been next to no maintenance. All we can do is change the tires in the fall and spring and put windshield wiper fluid in. We also have to wash it at times because we live on a gravel road and the car gets caked with mud. It is also much more pleasant to drive than any ICE I've had. I don't care about the acceleration, but it is super quiet and does not stink. Imagine a city with no noise and no fumes!
We've had an electric Kona since 2119 and couldn't be happier with it. We've had solar panels since 2009 and the price came down by over a third when we added more in 2017 under the Notley government rebate program. So now, the rising price of a non renewable, planet killing fuel doesn't bother us at all.
In fact, for the sake of our grandkids, we see those prices, gouging though they undoubtedly are, as the only good coming out of the Ukrainian war. We should all know by now that the military is the biggest spender when it comes to fossil fuels.....and war is a real bonus for the fossil fuel economy. Believing we can have our cake and eat it too may lead many to support the war and whine about gas prices...
The real alternative is to find alternatives to driving....EV ownership being only part of the solution. Privatizing everything, making everything available through export economies, and doubling down on extracting unconventional bitumen and fracked gas to fuel all that international trade is a fast track to climate breakdown.
And hard as it may be to grasp for some urbanites, when drastic changes in weather threaten food production, we'll all wish we'd transitioned sooner. Get in line for that Ev if you can afford it, get out of the line up at airports, if you understand the real need to go electric.
It's more than that old wallet in the back pocket of your designer jeans that's under threat now.
The solution is obviously more single passenger vehicles.
Odd that in one of the densest urban populations; for a specific, repetitive trip the concept of public transit doesn’t come up.