Ontario EV Rebates Cancelled July 11, 2018

[Nowhere Man]

Hi all,
Like others in Ontario, I'm hoping to co-ordinate my Model 3 purchase to take maximum advantage of all four Ontario EV incentives (i.e. rebate for vehicle, rebate for charger and installation, no PST/GST and free home charging for four years. The window for this may be narrow as some things are current, others are developing and some may be impacted by the next Provincial Election on June 7th, 2019.

I made my reservation on September 10th, 2016 and according to the Tesla Model 3 delivery estimator, I can anticipate delivery in January or February of 2019 (6-8 months after he election). I know this is only an estimate.

I have contacted both the Ministry of Transportation and Tesla to make them aware of this unique timeframe. Tesla suggested not to rely on incentives to make my purchase. The contact I spoke to at the Ministry of Transportation didn't seem to know anything about the upcoming home charging incentives. She had no idea how or when it would be implemented.

Has anyone else made direct contact with Tesla or the Ministry of Transportation? What responses did you get? According to model3tracker.info, 10% of Model 3 reservations are held by Canadians. Is there any more that we can/should do?

 

[Dante]

where did you hear about the no tax and free home charging?

Also the provincial election is 2018, not 2019.

 

[hingisfan]

where did you hear about the no tax and free home charging?

Also the provincial election is 2018, not 2019.

It's part of the Ontario Climate Change initiative, but there have been no concrete details as of yet.

 

[Scifi_tv_fan]

where did you hear about the no tax and free home charging?

Also the provincial election is 2018, not 2019.

Part of Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

https://www.ontario.ca/page/climate-change-action-plan

2) Increase the use of electric vehicles
Greenhouse gas pollution from cars account for more emissions than from industries like iron, steel, cement and chemicals combined. This action will help get more people into electric vehicles and lower greenhouse gases. It will:

2.1 Maintain incentives for electric vehicles
Ontario intends to extend the rebate program to 2020 for leasing or buying an eligible electric vehicle (up to $14,000 per vehicle), including rebates for purchase and installation of home charging stations (up to $1,000 per station).

2.2 Eliminate HST on zero emission vehicles
Ontario will work with the federal government to explore ways to provide full-HST relief to purchasers of new battery electric vehicles, with the objective of introducing this relief by 2018.

2.3 Free overnight electric vehicle charging
The province intends to establish a four-year free overnight electric vehicle-charging program for residential and multi-unit residential customers starting in 2017. Charging electric cars at night can help balance electricity system demands and potentially reduce costs associated with exporting excess electricity overnight. Ontario intends to work with utilities to transition this program to an optional enhanced time-of-day charging program. The goal would be to lower overall electricity bills for homes that charge vehicles.

 

[Nowhere Man]

Also the provincial election is 2018, not 2019.

Typo - my apologies

 

[Dante]

Wow, well that's quite the list of incentives. But you've gotta take anything Wynne promises with a grain of salt... so i think tesla has the right approach telling you not to rely on it. Though if you do get all those incentives, that's somewhere between 24-28k off the car over 4 years depending on how much you drive. Assuming the baseline model 3 is 45k, you'd be getting it for ~20k.

 

[sandpiper]

Wow, well that's quite the list of incentives. But you've gotta take anything Wynne promises with a grain of salt... so i think tesla has the right approach telling you not to rely on it. Though if you do get all those incentives, that's somewhere between 24-28k off the car over 4 years depending on how much you drive. Assuming the baseline model 3 is 45k, you'd be getting it for ~20k.

Wynne has higher priorities: firefighting to keep herself and her clown car of a government in power. I don't see any chance that any of this comes to pass. She's had the media event, gotten the accolades. That's all that matters.

 

[wayner]

IMHO the free overnight charging is tricky to do. Does this mean they give you free energy consumption overnight? How do they police abuses? Does the local distribution utility have to eat some of this subsidy? Do they give you a separate meter for your car? Who pays for the administration of the transfer of info from your utility to the government?

They should just work this into the rebate for an average consumption. Let's say that the average vehicle uses 25kWh/day of charging. That amount of energy costs about $3.25 per day at off-peak rates of $0.13/kWh. That is roughly $100/month. So free charging for four years is work $4800 or less if you apply the time value of money. Just increase the subsidy by that much. Making anything free promotes overconsumption.

 

[sitter_k]

People might get fed up with this climate change action plan and green initative. I doubt this carbon tax is doing her and green policies any favours.

 

[wayner]

Why do you say that? I don't know all of the implications of the carbon tax but at least when it comes to electricity won't it somewhat level the playing field? The carbon tax should have very little effect on electricity prices in Ontario since so little of the power comes from burning fossil fuels - just a bit of NatGas. Provinces that use more coal should see their prices rise.

 

[Blazing Whisper]

From folks I've talked to, no one is really against green initiatives but the biggest problem is that people aren't clear where all these extra taxes are going. They need to clearly define a plan, with specifics, to reassure people that the government is actually doing something positive. Right now it's all just up in the air with no details and its frustrating.

 

[wayner]

Which taxes are we talking about here? Don't forget that the carbon tax is a federal, not provincial, initiative.

Some of the other "green" policies actually did have material effect in Ontario, if you believe that closing down coal plants is a material positive thing. Some of these taxes will lead to that happening in other parts of the country as it will make coal more expensive.

 

[hingisfan]

From folks I've talked to, no one is really against green initiatives but the biggest problem is that people aren't clear where all these extra taxes are going. They need to clearly define a plan, with specifics, to reassure people that the government is actually doing something positive. Right now it's all just up in the air with no details and its frustrating.

Carbon tax is an evil word to most people. If an opposing party promises to get rid of the extra tax at the pump, I'm sure they will win. Wynn has screwed up plenty, but the climate change initiatives were pretty well done, if they actually follow through with them.

 

[Blazing Whisper]

The discussions I had were specific to the Ontario cap and trade program but can be applied generically to any and all taxes that would be used to help Ontario go green.

 

[sitter_k]

Why do you say that? I don't know all of the implications of the carbon tax but at least when it comes to electricity won't it somewhat level the playing field? The carbon tax should have very little effect on electricity prices in Ontario since so little of the power comes from burning fossil fuels - just a bit of NatGas. Provinces that use more coal should see their prices rise.

I was speaking about cap and trade specifically which has made gas 4-5 cents more expensive.

 

[CaptainKirk]

I got in line on March 31st before the reveal. I'm not counting on receiving the EV rebates, but I wanted to increase my odds. The way I see it, suppose the Model 3 qualifies for $14,000 rebate, the province can only allow so many rebates before it will need to curtail the program in some shape or form.

 

[Phillip L]

One of the main reasons I went for the Chevy Volt was the risk that the rebate would be gone before the Model III came out. So far have used the Volt 100% as an electric vehicle. It has been a very good choice for us as a second vehicle along with our Model S.

 

[mknox]

The way I see it, suppose the Model 3 qualifies for $14,000 rebate, the province can only allow so many rebates before it will need to curtail the program in some shape or form.

It's a touchy subject, but important to note that the purpose of an incentive is to "incentivize" someone to take an action (i.e. buy an EV) that they wouldn't otherwise have done without it. It is not intended to be a "reward" for doing something you would have done anyway. Once EV adoption picks up and can stand on it's own, the incentives will (or should) end, otherwise is is a ripoff to the taxpayer.

 

[AnitaToronto]

IMHO the free overnight charging is tricky to do. Does this mean they give you free energy consumption overnight? How do they police abuses? Does the local distribution utility have to eat some of this subsidy? Do they give you a separate meter for your car? Who pays for the administration of the transfer of info from your utility to the government?

They should just work this into the rebate for an average consumption. Let's say that the average vehicle uses 25kWh/day of charging. That amount of energy costs about $3.25 per day at off-peak rates of $0.13/kWh. That is roughly $100/month. So free charging for four years is work $4800 or less if you apply the time value of money. Just increase the subsidy by that much. Making anything free promotes overconsumption.

I actually have a separate meter for my car charging and I get quarterly data from Toronto Hydro that shows my car use vs home electricity use and it's all broken down into time of day, each day, plus aggregate data for various parameters. So they definitely can police and monitor exact use on this.

 

[mknox]

I actually have a separate meter for my car charging and I get quarterly data from Toronto Hydro that shows my car use vs home electricity use and it's all broken down into time of day, each day, plus aggregate data for various parameters. So they definitely can police and monitor exact use on this.

That was a special EV pilot program for a limited number of Toronto Hydro customers. It's great, and is the type of setup you'd need to truly measure free off-peak usage. The problem is that it was a subsidized pilot so that they could collect EV charging use and habits of the pilot group. It is a very expensive installation to put in and the question remains: who will pay for it?