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Originally Posted by 1overcosc
Arguably true, but these subsidies do encourage more people who were on the fence before to make the plunge, thus accelerating the rate of EV adoption. That's the essence of the government's climate change strategy; its focused on maximizing progress on environmental objectives. This is arguably the most effective way to truly create a low carbon economy; past initiatives (like BC's tax redistribution scheme) have focused too much on economic or social goals, which compromises environmental effectiveness.
Free overnight charging may very well stay permanently even once EVs have majority market share as it's also a tool to encourage people to charge their cars at a time when grid load is low; however, exempting EVs from sales tax is probably going to be phased out once EVs become commonplace.
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This would be totally unfair because obviously this would only apply at public locations. If I had a recharging station at my house (and this would be more typical in long run), electricity usage would be added to my hydro bill. Surely, we are not going to have a set of permanent subsidies that will permanently distort the market. This goes far beyond incentives. In the long run, if there is going to be an incentive for the private sector to build charging stations, there has to be an opportunity to make a profit. Otherwise, if we are dependant on subsidies, then there will be a permanent shortage of charging stations, which will have the opposite effect on up take of electric vehicles.