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EV Sales in Canada - pretty much all in QC, ON & BC

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wayner

Active Member
Oct 29, 2014
4,294
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Toronto
Take a look at this chart from fleetcarma. Maybe it is not surprising and maybe it is a good thing in some ways (since these provinces have very low CO2 intensity in their electricity generation) but effectively all EV sales in Canada are in Quebec, Ontario and BC. It may be true that Tesla only has stores in those three provinces but Teslas only represent about 1/4 of the current EV fleet in Canada.
canada-plugins-by-province-2016-final.jpg
 
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There is no charging network on the prairies.

There's a grand total of 1 Level 3 charger in Manitoba, on the campus of Red River College in Winnipeg.

There's 0 in Saskatchewan. There's a little bit in Alberta, on the way out of province to BC.

On the prairies there's huge distances between cities. Everybody drives hours to travel. Almost nobody's going to buy an EV if they can't fast charge it for road trips. Drive 1 to 3 hours, stop off at a Sun Country Highway charger for 6 hours, drive for 1 to 3 hours, rinse and repeat. It's not practical.

The only BEVs which can make the trip between Regina and Saskatoon for example, are the Bolt and Teslas. Bolts are not for sale here. That's in good weather. In the depths of winter a guy who drives a Tesla told me he has to stop off in Davidson to top up at the Sun Country Highway charger there because of the depleted range.
 
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@S'toon - Understood. I would say the real outlier is AB because they do have some charging infrastructure. When I looked at that report on fleetcarma I was struck by how the graph was so skewed to the three provinces.

On a macro level - if you care about climate change then you want EVs to go to places were the least amount of carbon is released when generating electricity - then you are replacing gasoline with hydro or nukes. Replacing gasoline with coal generated electricity has less of a net benefit to society.
 
It may be true that Tesla only has stores in those three provinces
Or it may not.
Our gas prices are also really low here in AB, so that also doesn't help. Not having a charging infrastructure was a concern... still slightly an issue if we try to drive east.

But really, if you consider that a brand new Tesla pretty much limits the owners to those making solid six figures, you have a limited market. That will change fortunately, we just need to be patient and save those nickels.
 
BC infrastructure still lags behind Quebec. We have 30 DCFC on the southern routes with 20 more to come within the next year or so. Reliability has also been an issue. The Okanagan valley is actually well covered but reliability has caused some to have to resort to level 2 charging...and fairly regularly. We are an all EV family, (2016 leaf SV and smart ED) but I'm glad we don't have to leave the valley often.
 
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I would have thought there would be more in Alberta. Just on sales tax alone a Tesla is still cheaper there than in Quebec with the $8000 rebate. True that their grid is filthy though so not a big deal.

Alberta is getting better by leaps and bounds. They have huge wind farms and solar is taking off like crazy. I think there are no coal plants left, they've been converted to gas. Not perfect but better.
 
Alberta is getting better by leaps and bounds. They have huge wind farms and solar is taking off like crazy. I think there are no coal plants left, they've been converted to gas. Not perfect but better.
You're talking about us like we're not even here! lol

We still have tons of coal, however the NDP paid out some pretty big contracts to get them to close down early. Very few new natural gas plants to cover the load. We need good baseload power. Some nukes would be nice, but there's no way the current small wind and solar additions are anything material.
Alberta to pay three power companies $1.36 billion to shut their coal-fired plants early
This article mentions hydro. I don't know where that would be. I doubt the Red Deer River could support more than a couple 100MW, and the First Nations would probably have a field day if they tried anything on the Peace or Athabasca. *cough*BC
 
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The only BEVs which can make the trip between Regina and Saskatoon for example, are the Bolt and Teslas. Bolts are not for sale here. That's in good weather. In the depths of winter a guy who drives a Tesla told me he has to stop off in Davidson to top up at the Sun Country Highway charger there because of the depleted range.

And I heard that is only a 32 amp level 2 in Davidson. Which isn't terribly motivating.

Why doesn't suncountry get some level 3 charging in saskatchewn? I would pay some dollars to use that. The resale of power is a bad excuse, tesla is doing it with similar rules in other provinces.
 
Dealers that sell the Soul EV and i3 are pretty much non existent outside of three provinces offering EV incentives. Those that sell the LEAF or the Volt are also rare.

As for BC lagging behind Quebec in infrastructure, since this in TMC I should mention that Quebec got Superchargers almost a year later than BC and only has four (one of which was down for most of last week).

Alberta - 4
BC - 7
Ontario - 10
Quebec - 4
 
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We need good baseload power. Some nukes would be nice, but there's no way the current small wind and solar additions are anything material

The NDP in Alberta are doing the right things it seems to me (from far away in Ontario):

Here in Ontario our nukes have resulted in massive costs not billed into the original plans, while they charge $0.09/kWh, the actual cost is far higher as the debt load to build them stalled any investments in Ontario electricity generation for 15 years.

Whereas the recent contracts for Solar were $0.13 and large scale Wind (500MW+) was $0.07/kWh now that the infrastructure to deploy these renewable generation has been built out.

Ontario has 4GW of Wind and 2.5GW of solar, growing to ~6GW of Wind and 3.5GW of Solar over the next few years. Our CO2 production/kWh is the envy of many jurisdictions, while our all-in price for electricity is competitive (and better) than many nearby US states.
 
And I heard that is only a 32 amp level 2 in Davidson. Which isn't terribly motivating.

Why doesn't suncountry get some level 3 charging in saskatchewn? I would pay some dollars to use that. The resale of power is a bad excuse, tesla is doing it with similar rules in other provinces.
There used to be Level 3 charging stations for sale (inquire for pricing) on the Sun Country site, but when I went there last week they were no longer there. <shrug>
 
Dealers that sell the Soul EV and i3 are pretty much non existent outside of three provinces offering EV incentives. Those that sell the LEAF or the Volt are also rare.

As for BC lagging behind Quebec in infrastructure, since this in TMC I should mention that Quebec got Superchargers almost a year later than BC and only has four (one of which was down for most of last week).

Alberta - 4
BC - 7
Ontario - 10
Quebec - 4
Actually, Quebec has five. You forgot the two SC stations at the Ferrier Service Center in Montreal.