Study suggests BC could do a lot more to promote use of electric vehicles

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Premier Christy Clark has announced incentives to get more British Columbians behind the wheel of an electric car — but are they enough?

A study of Norway’s overwhelming success in getting plug-in vehicles on the road points to some areas where BC could do better.

“In Norway, two per cent of their vehicle fleet is now electric. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but what you need to remember is that these are very new vehicles,” says Don MacKenzie with the University of Washington’s Sustainable Transportation Lab.

“When you look at the new car market, 26.4 per cent of vehicles sold in Norway [in 2015] were electric. That’s really astounding progress on this technology in a very short period of time,” he tells NEWS 1130.

The lab’s blog lists stats suggesting Norway now has the largest fleet of Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) per capita in the world, and most likely the cleanest since about 99 per cent of electricity in the country is generated through hydropower.

“What we see in Norway is sort of an ‘ecosystem’ of strategies and incentives,” says MacKenzie. “Right now, to grow the PEV market quickly, incentives are still necessary.”

In Norway, all electric cars are exempt from purchase taxes and the 25 per cent value added tax (VAT), making the price of PEVs competitive with conventional cars.

Drivers also enjoy free public charging, free toll roads, free parking, access to bus lanes and low annual road fees.

It also helps PEV sales that Norway has some of the highest gasoline prices of any country in the world.

MacKenzie says if British Columbia wants to grow its electric vehicle market as quickly as possible, the provincial government will want to go beyond incentivizing purchases.

“One of the key things is a charging infrastructure,” he explains. “The ranges are getting longer — GM’s new Volt will be capable of going 300 kilometres — so these vehicles are getting to where they can drive longer distances. But the ability to quickly charge in the middle of a trip remains an obstacle for many consumers.”

The public charging infrastructure for PEVs in Norway is relatively more abundant than in other countries and the world’s largest EV charging garage in Oslo (the capital of Norway and the EV capital of the world) is right in the city centre.

“Ensuring that public charging is available in enough places — and that it’s reliably available without a 30 or 40 minute wait for the car ahead of you to finish charging — is an important determinant for whether or not people will buy these vehicles as well.”

Of the $6.8 million in BC electric vehicle initiatives announced this week, $890,000 is going to expand public and residential charging programs.

The rest will go toward purchase incentives.