Nova Scotia charging stations a problem
I have owned an electric vehicle for over a year and am able to say I am very happy with it. Under normal circumstances, it has served my wife and I very well. There is virtually no maintenance required and we have saved hundreds of litres of gasoline over the 35,000 kilometres we have driven.
We quite often travel between home (Enfield) and Sydney, usually stopping to recharge the battery in Monastery. On Dec. 10, we did just that. However, when we tried to charge up, we discovered the charging station’s fast charger was “out of service.” We found out later that the unit had been reported “out of service” on Dec. 2, and as recently as Dec. 16 was still listed as so.
There we were, with a nearly depleted battery and no serviceable level three
(fast charger). We didn’t have enough battery power to get to the next charger on our route, Baddeck, or even enough to return to Stellarton. To shorten the story a bit, we sat for two-and-a-half hours while we waited for the level two (slow charger) to put enough power in our battery to get us to Baddeck.
In attempting to start the fast charger in Baddeck, we were unsuccessful and had to call FLO, the company administering the system, to start the unit remotely. Same story on the return trip.
On the return trip from Sydney, I had to charge up in North Sydney to have enough power to get me to Baddeck.
There I charged enough to get me to Stellarton, then charged enough there to get home to Enfield.
Ironically, of the four chargers I used that day, only the charging station in Monastery, which has one of the worst reputations in the province for blowing and drifting snow, was fully cleared of snow from a recent storm. The unit in Baddeck was partially cleared but neither the unit in North Sydney nor the one in Stellarton had been touched. I had to drive through eight to 10 inches of snow to get to the chargers in each location, as had at least one other vehicle, judging from the tracks.
The reason for my letter is to point out that for a province like Nova Scotia and a power company like Nova
Scotia Power, that claim to be attempting to promote the use of electric vehicles, there seems to be very, very little effort being extended toward maintaining a provincewide system of support for such vehicles.
Very few people will seriously consider buying an electric vehicle capable of travelling in excess of 300 kilometres on a full charge that must, however, pull in to every charger along their route to top up with power because the status of the next charging unit or location is so uncertain and unreliable.
“If you build it they will come” but if you don’t properly maintain it, they will just as quickly leave.
Ernest Wilson lives in Enfield.