By 2035 all cars, SUVs and light trucks sold in Canada must be electric, a goal experts describe as an ambitious one by the federal government as part of its plan to decarbonize the transportation sector and reach .
But will Canada鈥檚 infrastructure be able to handle all of these new electric vehicles?
There doesn鈥檛 seem to be a clear answer, as experts in the automotive and green energy industries say there are several factors to consider.
According to the federal government鈥檚 data, electric vehicles only made up , or 86,000 vehicles, in Canada in 2021.
The Liberal government鈥檚 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan outlines an increase of up to (ZEV) sales in 2026; 1.2 million ZEVs in 2030; and a whopping 2 million ZEVs sold in 2035 -- which translates to 5 per cent, 16 per cent and 40 per cent of all light-duty vehicles on the road.
There are several elements to improving Canada鈥檚 electric vehicle infrastructure. The most obvious is the need for a dramatic increase in charging stations, of which the federal government has to build 84,000 over the next four years.
Daniel Breton, the president of , a national not-for-profit working to advance electric mobility in Canada, said one of the main issues today in electric vehicle infrastructure is that there just aren鈥檛 enough of them for sale.
鈥淐anadian consumers want to buy electric vehicles,鈥� Breton said, 鈥渂ut they're really hard to come by. That is why we think we need more infrastructure for electric vehicles and we need to make sure that the infrastructure is reliable.鈥�
A new Volkswagen 鈥榞igafactory鈥� assembling electric vehicle batteries in St. Thomas, Ont. is expected to begin production in 2027, creating up to 3,000 jobs in the region.
A General Motors plant, just 50 kilometres away from the Volkswagen factory in Ingersol, Ont. converted their facility into Canada鈥檚 . By 2025, the plant is expected to make 50,000 electric vehicles a year.
CHARGING
Charging an electric vehicle at home may sound simple: you plug your car into an outlet and let the battery charge. But it鈥檚 a little more complicated than that.
According to Natural Resources Canada, there are an electric vehicle.
The first, Level 1, is when you use your vehicle鈥檚 portable cord and plug it into a standard 120 volt wall socket. This is the slowest speed 鈥� it will get you about 3 kilometres to 8 kilometres of juice for every hour it鈥檚 left charging.
The second level requires electric vehicle owners to install a Level Two charging station in their homes. A Level 2 charger will get you 16 kilometres to 97 kilometres of energy per hour charged. But Level 2s require more electricity voltage, about the same as a stove or air conditioner might 鈥� 208 to 240 volts.
And a Level 3 charger is a 鈥淒C charger that provides the fastest charging time,鈥� Natural Resources of Canada , but these are typically found in public places and businesses.
Most electric vehicle owners opt to install Level 2 chargers in their homes because they work faster and more efficiently, but many homes in Canada are built with older 120 volt electrical grids, which put out significantly less electricity than a 240 volt grid.
When homeowners already have their stoves, fridge, air conditioners and other mega-electricity consumers plugged into their electrical grids, charging an electric vehicle at the same time may overload it and burn it out.
But Kevin Lisso, the CEO and co-founder of the Toronto-based green energy company , says many chargers today are equipped with a load management system, where the charger is smart enough to find the remaining power on the grid, whether it be 10 available amps or 40 amps, and it won鈥檛 overload the system.
鈥淚t will charge your car a little bit slower for 20 amps, but then as soon as you go to bed at night and your washing machine is off, your dryer turns off, the air conditioning is off, then all of a sudden you have all of this power available, and the charger will find it and use it because it has load management built into it,鈥� Lisso said.
According to the Government of Canada, there are over in Canada today.
ELECTRIC GRIDS
Charging at home may work for many electric vehicle owners now, but Canada鈥檚 electrical grid infrastructure will need a significant overhaul when thousands more electric vehicles are on the road.
According to a study by the , the move away from fossil fuels to clean energy in electricity consumption will put much more strain on Canada鈥檚 electrical grid, especially during 鈥榩eak hours,鈥� between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m., when most people get home from work start using their appliances. This is also a prime time to plug in their cars to charge for the night.
In a , a University of Concordia postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, he and his colleagues found that if too many electric vehicles charge at the same time, 鈥渋t will create a lot of problems for the network and perhaps cause a blackout,鈥� said El-Bayeh in the study.
鈥淚nstead of improving the stability of the network and reducing pollution by using EVs, you鈥檒l have the reverse effect.鈥�
One of the suggestions the study makes is to utilize batteries that are bidirectional, where 鈥渢he vehicle discharges power from its battery back into the grid.鈥� This will allow vehicles to store more energy than they need. When a is plugged into a socket, it can feed electricity back into the grid, powering buildings and homes and easing the tension put on Canada鈥檚 electrical system.
Today, many provinces are rolling out studies and testing their electrical infrastructure. In Alberta, FortisAlberta, an electricity distribution provider for the province, offered who owned electric vehicles up to $250 to sign up for a study based on their car鈥檚 charging data.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES ARE HEAVY
Another major issue with electric vehicles is that they鈥檙e significantly heavier than gas-powered vehicles.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a matter of physics,鈥� said David Adams, the president of the . 鈥淭he batteries are extremely heavy and the vehicles are extremely heavy.鈥�
Adams explained that the larger the vehicle, the bigger and heavier the battery will have to be to power it, which makes it even more dangerous to cars on the road. He added that the tires for electric vehicles are also heavier than combustion engine vehicles because they are built to sustain the weight of the battery.
This added weight will put more strain on our roads. It also makes it much more dangerous for gas-powered vehicles when an electric vehicle and a gas-powered car collide.
In 2011, the found that if a vehicle weighs 1,000 pounds more than another vehicle, it results in a 47 per cent increase in fatality risk.
Earlier this year, the National Transportation Safety Board in the U.S. over the increasing weight of electric trucks and Hummers, saying, 鈥淲e have to be careful that we aren鈥檛 also creating unintended consequences: More death on our roads鈥s]afety, especially when it comes to new transportation policies and new technologies, cannot be overlooked.鈥�
Correction:
This version of the story has been corrected to specify that electric vehicles made up 5.3 per cent of new vehicle registrations in Canada in 2021, not all vehicle sales.
This version of the story has also been corrected to specify that the percentages pertaining to the Liberal government鈥檚 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan are proportions of all light-duty vehicles on the road, not just ZEVs on the road.
