End of rebates expected to drag Ontario sales of e-cars

Program offered up to $14,000 back

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s decision to cancel rebates for electric vehicles in the province is expected to have a knock-on effect on sales.

David Adams, president of the Global Automakers of Canada industry association, said Friday that experience elsewhere shows that sales of electric vehicles take a hit when subsidies are removed, such as when British Columbia stopped and then restarted its program.

“When they cancelled it, sales went down dramatically, and then when they reinstated it sales went back up again. That is the same pattern that we’ve seen in other jurisdictions internationally,” he said.

Customers generally look for some kind of assistance in overcoming the extra cost of electric vehicles, Adams said.

“The reality is that without some kind of incentive in place to bridge that price differential between a regular internal combustion engine vehicle and the more expensive electric or hydrogen vehicles, consumers just don’t purchase them in the same numbers.”

The Ontario program offered up to $14,000 back for buyers, but the new Ford government cancelled the rebate this week along with the cap-and-trade program that helped fund it as part of wider costcutting measures.

According to data compiled by Fleet Carma, 7,477 battery and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles were sold in Ontario last year.

The sales were an increase of 120 per cent from 2016, when increased rebates were implemented.