To the editor,
I read your editorial in the Listowel Banner (“Where’s my free gas,” Dec. 8) and I’d like to give you some of my perspective as a resident of Listowel and an owner of two electric vehicles (EV) in our household that combined don’t come to the cost of the examples you cited in your article.
I’m a licensed professional engineer and yes, I do reasonably well for myself. My wife works in Palmerston on a fairly average national salary. I do work in the Region of Waterloo and I am one of the founders of the Waterloo Regional Electric Vehicle Association. Our group does cover a fairly wide geographic area.
For information, the charging station located in downtown Listowel is a SAEJ1772 Level 2 electric vehicle supplied equipment (EVSE). It’s connected at 208VAC and can output 30 amps of charging current, which equates to six kilowatts of charging power. If someone plugs in for two hours and pulls the full 30 amps, they will consume approximately 12KWh of electricity. So even at $0.20/KWh, that equates to $2.40 of electricity, so the subsidy you speak of is quite minor. If this were a high-powered DC fast charge station, your point might carry more weight. To transition this station to add a payment terminal might actually cost more to install and operate than the cost of the electricity it currently dispenses.
I drive a Chevrolet Volt and my wife has a Chevrolet Bolt EV. A 2023 Chevrolet Bolt EV starts at an MSRP of $41,147 and qualifies for the $5,000 after sales tax federal rebate. To some, this may sound expensive, but if you look at the total cost of vehicle ownership, it is often more affordable that most other gas vehicles in its class. A Chevrolet Bolt EV in Ontario costs about $0.03/km in electricity to drive. A Chevrolet Trax costs about $0.10/km in gasoline to drive.
In addition, the maintenance of an EV is far less than a combustion vehicle as it doesn’t require oil changes, engine air filter, tuning, spark plugs, etc. And before someone mentions the battery, EVs in Canada have a minimum battery warranty of eight years or 160,000km, and the vast majority will still have over 80 per cent usable capacity, even after 15 years. I personally know several EV owners with cars now over 11 years old and with hundreds of thousands of kilometres on them that are still running strong.
Our EV association isn’t made up of a bunch of rich aristocrats like your article alluded to. Our members comprise hundreds of people of a wide demographic ranging from high school students who purchased a used Ford Focus EV to seniors living off a pension. Most of these people were simply able to do the math and understand that owning a car is much more than just the monthly finance or lease payments. And yes, some of these people are willing to pay a bit of a premium in some situations to reduce their environmental footprint. The F150 Lightning and Tesla Model 3 are not inexpensive vehicles, but a comparable regular F150 or a BMW 3 series are not inexpensive either, especially when you factor in the total cost of ownership.
The electric vehicle industry is moving quickly and new more affordable options are coming to market every year. The charging infrastructure is evolving rapidly with hundreds of new charging stations being installed every year in Ontario alone.
Erik Stephens
Listowel
