[GMasterAres]

Anyone have any thoughts on how EVs will crack the Strata issue in Metro-Vancouver? Case and point, the majority of new condo developments do not include EV charging stations. Also if they did, it would only be a few and you couldn't account for a lot of vehicles.

For a Strata council to retrofit after the fact can cost upwards of $5000+ per charging station and I've found in talking with residents that even those with EVs are unwilling to pay the fee themselves to have a station installed in their parking stall.

If developers were instead to build into the parking EV options it would push up condo prices even greater as they would need to compensate for the large expense.

In our strata here we have no EV stations but we've actually had the odd EV or two parked overnight in the underground (friends of a resident) and they plug in to the regular wall socket. This has become a point of contention whenever it happened because other residents will argue that they are subsidizing this person for "free fuel" since it is strata paid electricity and the 1 owner (out of 194 units) is effectively only paying 1/194th of the expense.

Granted the power usage is likely quite low overall, but it still becomes a point of contention. Curious what you all think, especially those living in Vancouver where I think EVs are a bit more prevalent to date.

Personally, I still see EVs as a commuter vehicle around town and I worry about the long-term reliability and cost of ownership. Will they for example last 10-15 years? i know our Hybrids at work are needing battery replacements and they are 6-7 years old now and it is expensive. Replacing the batteries also completely undoes any possible fuel savings you may have realized by charging by electricity and EVs have even more batteries than Hybrids. I guess you could just replace your vehicle every 5 years but then you're paying for a vehicle all the time.

On the flip side, I have a feeling prices will continue to drop as more are mass produced and become more common and technology will only improve. I still think Hydrogen is the ultimate goal for vehicles, but there are still challenges with that beyond those shared by EVs and we'll likely see fully autonomous vehicles before Hydrogen cars become a practical reality as EVs have recently.

That said, they've certainly come a long ways and given some of the EV based super cars you're seeing being made today, I definitely think they are here to stay.

Those against Site C dam though may argue the point that the energy is cheap in BC. *shrug*