Canada coasting in slow lane for electric car usage, support
There were more than two million electric vehicles on roads around the world in 2016, according to a new report released by the International Energy Agency, but Canada still lags among global leaders when it comes to electric car stock and infrastructure.
The Global Electric Vehicle Outlook 2017, released by the IEA on Wednesday, said the number of registered electric cars around the world hit a new record in 2016 with more than 750,000 sales, pushing the stock to more than two million in 2016, a 60 per cent growth from last year.
China is the largest electric car market in the world, with 336,000 new electric cars registered in 2016 alone, but it represents a mere 1.37 per cent of the country’s total car market.
Meanwhile, Canada remains behind China, Norway and the other leading nations in the electric vehicle market. In 2016, 11,580 electric vehicles were sold in Canada, or just 0.59 per cent of the total car market.
The federal government has created an advisory panel aimed at raising the number of zeroemission vehicles on Canada’s roads. The panel, which includes experts from the auto industry, non-governmental organizations, and both provincial and federal governments, will focus on developing a national strategy for electric vehicles by 2018.
The IEA report stressed that supportive policy must be in place to enable growth in the electric vehicle market.
“Electric vehicles still have a long way to go before reaching deployment scales capable of making a significant dent in the development of global oil demand and greenhouse gas emissions,” the report said.
“A supportive policy environment enables market growth by making vehicles appealing for consumers, reducing risks for investors and encouraging manufacturers willing to develop EV business streams on a large scale to start implementing them.”
Both auto industry leaders and electric vehicle advocates stress that both slow and fast charging stations need to be made more widely available to help spark electric car sales in Canada.
Slow chargers — known as level two chargers — use a 240-volt system and can fully recharge vehicles from zero in about four to six hours.
Fast chargers — or level three chargers — can recharge cars up to 80 per cent in 30 minutes.
According to the report, Canada had 3,900 publicly accessible slow chargers available across the country in 2016, the fourth fewest among the 12 countries analyzed. China led the way, with more than 52,000 slow chargers, followed by the United States with more than 35,000 and the Netherlands with more than 26,000.
When it came to fast chargers, Canada had just 315 publicly available in 2016, while China boasted more than 88,000, Japan nearly 6,000 and the United States more than 5,300.
Canada is one of 10 member governments in the Electric Vehicles Initiative, a multi-government policy forum established in 2009 with the aim of accelerating the use deployment of electric vehicles around the world.
Electric Vehicles Initiative nations hope to have electric vehicles represent 30 per cent of the market share by 2030.