Will Ontario meet 2020 electric vehicle target? Analysts doubt it will.

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Meeshika Sharma
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Ontario is visualizing a future in which millions of electric vehicles are on the roads, but analysts predict consumer uptake will remain far off the government target for 2020, despite tens of millions of dollars in subsidies.

The Liberal government has been encouraging electric vehicle sales by doling out $75 million in rebates to vehicle owners, offering various other incentives and programs, installing a network of charging stations and spending $1 million to open an electric vehicle education centre.

But that so far hasn’t translated into vast numbers of vehicles. The official data for 2017 isn’t yet available, but at the end of last year, electric vehicles represented less than one per cent of all passenger vehicle sales in Ontario.

It can’t be done, analysts say.

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Auto industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers says, “The chances of meeting it aren’t low, they’re zero.In the auto sector all roads lead to electric, it just happens to be that the road to serious acceptance of them is probably at least 2030 and more likely 2040, 2050.”

Tony Faria, an auto industry analyst at the University of Windsor, agrees that Ontario won’t meet its goal by 2020.

Range anxiety – a fear that an electric vehicle would run out of charge somewhere far from a charging station – is cited by analysts, the industry and government as one of the main reasons more people haven’t yet switched to electric vehicles.

The government announced in July 2016 that it would spend $20 million to build a network of 500 public charging stations along highways and at public places across the province by March 31, 2017.But now, more than eight months after that self-imposed deadline, just two-thirds of the stations are in use.

Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca said that timeline was “ambitious” and there have been challenges around the locations of some of the chargers, permits and construction delays, but he still believes the target can be met.

Del Duca said that it takes time to get people to change their behaviours.

 

 

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