Federal government to fund 100 electric car charging stations
The federal government is giving Hydro- Québec $5 million to build 100 fast-charging stations across the province, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said on Wednesday.
The fast-charging stations can charge a vehicle’s battery to 80 per cent in half an hour.
Increasing the number of charging stations is an important part of incentivizing people to use electric vehicles, McKenna said.
“We know that climate change is real and it’s having a huge economic cost, but at the same time we have a huge economic opportunity,” McKenna said. “It’s been estimated that it’s a $26-trillion opportunity, and we need to take advantage of this.”
Action to fight climate change could add $26 trillion to the global economy between now and 2030, according to a study released in September by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, an organization created by the World Resources Institute, a United States-based think tank.
France Lampron, the director of transportation electrification at Hydro-Québec, said Hydro wants to send the message to future buyers of electric vehicles that charging stations will be available.
Hydro says it plans to build 1,600 fast-charging stations in Quebec over the next 10 years.
The utility says it intends to build more than 100 charging stations before the end of the year, with 49 fast-charging stations coming before the end of spring. Six of those will be in Montreal, with the rest built across the province.
Lampron said Hydro plans to increase the number of stations in areas where usage is high, as well as expand its Circuit électrique network to underserved areas, like Mauricie, the Côte-Nord, Saguenay–Lac-St-Jean and Abitibi-Témiscamingue.
The federal government wants 100 per cent of vehicles in Canada to be electric by 2040.
McKenna said she doesn’t see a contradiction between her government’s efforts to fight climate change — and increase the electrification of transport — and its $4.5-billion purchase of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline.
“We’re in a transition,” McKenna said. “People are still driving cars that use gas. A transition doesn’t happen from one day to the next. Canada can show the world, yes, we’re going to get our resources to market during the transition because we’re doing the hard work.”
Using a Hydro-Québec fastcharging station costs $10 an hour, billed by the minute.
Charging a Chevrolet Bolt — the most popular electric vehicle in Canada — to 80 per cent, a range of just over 300 km, costs around $1.67 per 100 km. It costs about $9 to travel 100 km in a Honda Civic, the most popular car in Canada, at current Montreal gas prices.
However, the starting price of a Bolt is $44,400, though that’s before a $8,000 rebate from the provincial government, while the cost of a Civic starts at $17,790.