The opinion column on EVs “Are electric cars really the future?” [published April 18 ] has a few preconceptions and errors.
In 2000, there was no major electric vehicle production going on. What few EVs that existed were proto-type vehicles. GM produced 1,117 EV1s from 1996-99.
Only 800 were for lease with no option to buy, even for those who wanted to buy them. This was a major test platform. Most of these were destroyed in 2002, so GM would not need to supply parts for a small number of aging cars. A few were given to museums, according to the General Motors page on Wikipedia.
BMW, in 2012, did a similar thing with 500 electric 3 Series cars, building 1,100 in their Active E Program. These, too, were leased for similar reasons.
GM admitted, they dropped the ball and should have continued with their research into electric vehicles, Wikipedia states.
About 10 years later they brought out the Volt, a plug-in hybrid and full EVs started to appear. The two big players were Nissan, with the Leaf and the new player, Tesla. Tesla was thought to die soon—a new car builder, let alone one that only built electric cars.
As to EV prices, many models fall in the mid-$40,000s and that doesn’t include the rebates from federal and provincial sources, according to plugndrive.ca.
Compare that to the average price of a light-duty vehicle in Canada of $66,000, according to BCAA.
No, you can’t pop the hood to put oil in, but these cars need next to no maintenance and the batteries are lasting longer than manufacturers thought.
A Tesla owner in Australia has gone almost 700,000 kms on the original battery.
Resale value may look low, but two factors play here.
One is fear of the cost of ownership by non-EV buyers and the fact that they had $9,000 in rebates.
So, don’t compare used prices to list.
Infrastructure is building out quickly and new B.C. requirements for charging are coming to apartment buildings.
As to charging times, they continue to drop and will reach parity with gas cars.
To the columnist who wrote this piece, please reach out to some EV owners or EV groups to find out the truth about EVs, then comment. EV owners are not a “privileged” group.
And yes, gas vehicles will be around for some time.
Bob Porter
Squamish
