The Fast and E-Furious

Re: Electric cars will set you free (Jonathan Kay) If you don’t mind big government ( Terence Corcoran), Sept. 30

These duelling articles were a real treat. As the president of a condo corporation ( or strata corporation as they are known in B.C.) now navigating the upgrades being requested by owners buying electric cars I have a couple of observations.

Firstly, don’t expect solar panels to make any significant dent in the electricity supply needed f or charging. Most electric vehicles ( EVs) are charged overnight because that is the most convenient time, but is, of course, guaranteed to be sunless. In Vancouver where I am, upwards of 30 per cent of EV owners live in the downtown in highrise buildings that are poor candidates for solar because they have small per capita roof areas.

Secondly, government regulation attaches to any technology that gets widely adopted simply because it is not needed when it is only deployed in small numbers. How long will it take to realize that disposal/recycling of lithium needs more aggressive rules to keep this toxic heavy metal out of the natural environment ( and hence food chain)? As well, energy concentrated and stored is a potential explosive so safety rules will be needed as batteries grow in capacity and become more numerous. Recall certain Samsung smartphones being banned by airlines due to their risk of spontaneous combustion? Recall, too, Apple notebooks, Tesla S cars and Boeing Dreamliners all having problems with their rechargeable batteries catching fire. Fires are just feeble explosions.

The biggest infrastructure challenge for EVs is delivering the electricity from whatever source — utility or home solar panel — to the vehicle. It requires a lot of upgrading of electricity systems both in streets and alleyways as well as in buildings. The bulk supply system ( major generators and long distance transmission) has plenty of capacity ( the f ederal government figures quoted by Corcoran don’t stand up to scrutiny) because it is idle at night when most EV owners want to plug in and the incremen- tal demand will be averaged down because statistically the very large number of cars plugged in won’t all call for max power at the same time. However the local distribution networks have elements ( transformers, metering, supply panels and individual circuits) that serve only one or a few potential plugin spots and would hit their peak capacity with only one or a few EVs plugging in. The smaller the number, the poorer the statistics for averaging down become.

Finally, governments simply won’t be able to forego the revenue from gasoline tax as it goes missing, so electricity will be increasingly taxed somehow.

So I guess I’m with Corcoran on balance. The escape from big government that Kay sees with EVs is unfortunately a transitional benefit only. In a way, that benefit is part of the bonusing new paradigms needed to overcome barriers to entry into mainstream markets. Grab them while you can? Jan Carr, former CEO of Ontario Power Authority, now living in Vancouver