A new investment from Pacific Economic Development Canada will see nearly 500 electric vehicle chargers installed throughout British Columbia.
Spread across eight projects, the $22 million investment is slated to add chargers along main travel routes, in public places, at workplaces and in multi-unit residential buildings, according to Gregor Robertson, minister responsible for PacifiCan.
“We are accelerating the transition to zero-emission vehicles with the installation of more than 480 EV chargers in British Columbia,” he stated, bringing the total in the province to more than 5,000.
According to Robertson, the chargers “are located in high-demand areas and along busy highway corridors where Canadians need them most.”
The funding was delivered in collaboration with partners in provincial utilities and municipalities to address range anxiety for Canadians considering purchasing an EV in the future.
Through these projects, “we are delivering practical, on-the-ground solutions to improve EV charging availability for British Columbians,” says Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources.
“Canada is taking bold action to become an energy superpower,” he continued. “Investments like this are how we build a cleaner, more secure and more competitive economy.”
Since 2016, the Government of Canada has allocated more than $1 billion in funding to support the deployment of electric vehicle charging stations across the country.
Despite the $1B spent on stations, however, range anxiety and a lack of charging infrastructure remain top-of-mind concerns for many British Columbians, who as a group are becoming increasingly disenchanted with overzealous mandates around zero-emissions vehicles.
Only 3% of vehicles on the road in B.C. are electric currently. EVs make up just 13% of total vehicle sales in BC, which is down from 22% last year. Yet both B.C. and Canadian governments have set aggressive mandates in which 100% of vehicles sold after 2035 must be electric (not even hybrids count, much to the chagrin of three-quarters of B.C. residents, according to the findings of a recent annual Ipsos poll.
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