BC Hydro steps up!

[DuncanM]

BC Hydro is rapidly expanding it's DCFC network:

Charging an EV in B.C. just got faster and more convenient. Earlier this month we opened our first ever fast-charging hub at the Surrey Arts Centre in Bear Creek Park, followed by hubs at North Surrey Sport & Ice Complex and Surrey Guildford Recreation Centre.

Together, these hubs feature sixteen 180 kW chargers with power sharing capacity to serve 32 vehicles at once. (from an email from BC Hydro)

Surrey happy to host electric vehicle fast charging hubs

For embracing the addition of BC Hydro eight-vehicle electric vehicle charging hubs, the City of Surrey has been named a BC Hydro Clean Energy Champion.

www.bchydro.com

It would be great if other Provincial utilities would step up in similar fashion.

 

[bpjod]

I applaud BC Hydro's efforts at building charging infrastructure. Compared to the poor effort here in Alberta, I must say that I'm impressed. A bit disappointing that they've stuck with CCS/CHAdeMO for these, I hope they soon switch to or include NACS in their new builds. I do have an official Tesla CCS adapter, but it's a pain to use relative to the NACS chargers. Given most manufacturers announced in 2023 they'd be switching to NACS in 2025/6, installing CCS/CHAdeMO and no NACS seems a bit myopic, but maybe they've designed an easy upgrade in the future for these units.

 

[DuncanM]

I applaud BC Hydro's efforts at building charging infrastructure. Compared to the poor effort here in Alberta, I must say that I'm impressed. A bit disappointing that they've stuck with CCS/CHAdeMO for these, I hope they soon switch to or include NACS in their new builds. I do have an official Tesla CCS adapter, but it's a pain to use relative to the NACS chargers. Given most manufacturers announced in 2023 they'd be switching to NACS in 2025/6, installing CCS/CHAdeMO and no NACS seems a bit myopic, but maybe they've designed an easy upgrade in the future for these units.

One of the nice things about the BCH DCFC network is that you can use a Chargepoint or FLO RFID card to activate the chargers, as long as you have a BCH, CP and/or FLO accounts. I've found BCH DCFCs to be reliable, with excellent up time, and nearly every little town in the south 1/2 of BC has at least one, and typically two, BCH DCFCs. There's a number of free, albeit slow, DCFCs in locations where cell coverage is spotty, such as the Redhill rest stop, just south of Cache Creek.

 

[bolero]

They're suppose to add chargers along highway 37 and 97 up north all the way to Yukon border. Also Yukon has plenty of CCS chargers in their province, the problems is most of the locations has one CCS charger and no L2 backup.

 

[Dear_OP]

I applaud BC Hydro's efforts at building charging infrastructure. Compared to the poor effort here in Alberta, I must say that I'm impressed. A bit disappointing that they've stuck with CCS/CHAdeMO for these, I hope they soon switch to or include NACS in their new builds. I do have an official Tesla CCS adapter, but it's a pain to use relative to the NACS chargers. Given most manufacturers announced in 2023 they'd be switching to NACS in 2025/6, installing CCS/CHAdeMO and no NACS seems a bit myopic, but maybe they've designed an easy upgrade in the future for these units.

Because.... Alberta. I'm surprised this province didn't impose extra fees for EVs.

 

[Qaazon]

Because.... Alberta. I'm surprised this province didn't impose extra fees for EVs.

BC wants to encourage EV adoption. Alberta... uhh...

Having said that, I do think that we should scrap the fuel tax and tax vehicles based on weight and km travelled when we renew every year

 

[Dear_OP]

I agree with weight based or even engine capacity based tax. Distance travelled is a hard sell as Canada is a large country.

 

[bpjod]

I agree with weight based or even engine capacity based tax. Distance travelled is a hard sell as Canada is a large country.

Road damage is by the cube of the weight IIRC. If so, the vast majority of damage is from transport trucks, construction vehicles (think cranes, loaded dump trucks, etc.) and the like. All of society benefits from those whether you own a vehicle or not. Road construction and maintenance should be funded from general revenues. Scrap the fuel tax and simply have an annual registration fee that’s equal for all light duty vehicles regardless of power train.

 

[Tony_YYZ]

I applaud BC Hydro's efforts at building charging infrastructure. Compared to the poor effort here in Alberta, I must say that I'm impressed. A bit disappointing that they've stuck with CCS/CHAdeMO for these, I hope they soon switch to or include NACS in their new builds. I do have an official Tesla CCS adapter, but it's a pain to use relative to the NACS chargers. Given most manufacturers announced in 2023 they'd be switching to NACS in 2025/6, installing CCS/CHAdeMO and no NACS seems a bit myopic, but maybe they've designed an easy upgrade in the future for these units.

This is pure speculation on my part but based on what I’ve anecdotally read in the industry-sphere, Tesla’s last culling of jobs related to the Supercharging team put many companies and industries at unease. The NACS adapter rollout this year has stalled due to that and OEMs were having real discussions about plans to whether to move forward with the native ports in 2025.

With that in mind, I can’t fault any charger companies for not pushing forward with NACS connectors just yet, especially if they were left in the dark with regards to active conversations/dealings/spec’ing after the Tesla debacle. If I were in their shoes I’d be wary until NACS was out there in other cars in greater numbers before deciding to allocate spend to fitting the connectors.

As it stands, any Tesla built from ~2022 onwards can charge at CCS with the CCS>NACS adapter but there is no official solution for the majority of CCS equipped cars to utilize NACS yet. Only a small amount of Rivian and Ford customers have the NACS>CCS adapters in hand.

Cheers.

 

[Dear_OP]

Selfishly I am happy with the slower adoption of NACS so that our SCs are not clogged with non-Teslas. I've seen photos of some Ford Lighthing/MachE occupying 2 spots or worse to charge up due to charge port locations.

 

[wayner]

Because.... Alberta. I'm surprised this province didn't impose extra fees for EVs.

They did! Alberta slaps $200 registration tax on EVs, starting January 2025

And Sask did it years ago.

 

[bpjod]

They did! Alberta slaps $200 registration tax on EVs, starting January 2025

And Sask did it years ago.

Yes. And Alberta's gas tax is $0.13 per litre. To pay $200 in gas tax, one would have to buy 1,540 litres of gas. At 7 l/100km that's 22,000 km/yr. Not entirely unreasonable. A good deal for high mileage drivers.

 

[Qaazon]

I agree with weight based or even engine capacity based tax. Distance travelled is a hard sell as Canada is a large country.

Gas tax is based on consumption - more km driven, more tax revenue.