Quote:
Originally Posted by BCPhil
There are some things working against EV ownership in BC though: Mountains and vast distances between communities.
I was looking at getting an EV, but the selection is too limited for my taste at the moment, and I would be far too worried about driving to the Okanagan or further in one at present.
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I have a relative who owns a Tesla S, and says they can make it from the Thompson-Nicola area to the Tesla factory in California. So that's not the problem. The problem is people hogging the Supercharger stations, because people will park their car at them and then leave for hours.
The main obstacle to to owning an EV in Canada is road conditions/quality. EV's are heavier than equivalent gasoline car, and thus winter is very harsh on cars not produced for climates that get snow.
Metro Vancouver doesn't have any superchargers, there is one in Hope, Whistler, Kelowna, and Kamloops. Seems like a huge oversight to me when the closest one is in Burlington. Likewise if you look at
the map, they just stop when you get to Red Deer along Highway 1. If you wanted to make a Cross-Canada trip you can't, you'd have to go along highway 90 in the US.
If you filter in "destination charging" there is the Metrotown Hilton, Art Knapp South Surrey, Inn at the Quay (New West), 7 hotels in downtown Vancouver and one at Jordans.
The main adoption problem in North America is the 120V system. European vehicles have onboard chargers that work with the 240V system's over there and can basically do a L2 charge at home/work. Over here you can't effectively charge a EV without spending 12 hours at a charging station, which means you have to charge it at home AND at your destination.
http://www.ceati.com/files/ev/BC%20E...Guidelines.pdf
Apparently in 2009 it costs about 2300$ to install a L2 charging point in a residence.