I have now owned an electric car for just over a year. A strange mix of circumstances somehow got me there. It is a new world. Electric cars are different and inserted into an established culture of service stations and gas pumps everywhere. My wife and I both love the car. Using it around town is no big deal. Travelling distances is different, but we now go to the cottage and to Stratford with few qualms, at lower cost with reduced pollution.
Several forces led to buying an electric car. I
care about global warming and ways of reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. I write to governments
pushing for them to move on these issues. I had
researched and talked about the fact that the
biggest contribution to global warming in
Ontario comes from transportation. There was a
need to get people into electric cars and
trucks. We had already managed to get a Prius V
hybrid car in 2012 – our most expensive car to
that date. We traded that in for a used later
model Prius V in 2020. The price was low at the
very beginning of the Covid lockdowns. For us,
the hybrid car had reduced gas consumption by
around half. But we had friends who had taken
the plunge to electric cars, who claimed to like
them and cheekily reminded us that we were still
gas guzzlers.
Another factor in our move was that my wife
challenged me that I should put my money where
my mouth was on climate change. I should also
confess that a factor was that I rather wanted
to be the first in the Clark family to take the
plunge to an electric car. The last factor was
cost, but it was a factor. We found a car we
liked the look of at a price we could stretch to
given a good trade-in. I had read up on the
latest Chevy Bolt. It had been a prize winner a
year or so earlier but was no longer the most
fashionable choice. However, it was good, a bit
small looking but with good internal space. The
low price, as e-cars go, came with a federal
government subsidy. In early 2022 used Prius V
cars were in demand so that a good trade-in
price was in the offing. So it was that we took
the plunge to pay the difference on a price that
topped anything I’d ever paid for a car.
The good news is that in many ways the car
drives like any other. It has tabs for
forward, back, park and the parking brake. The
big meter facing the driver states the
kilometers you have left in the battery – more
on that and charging below. There are all
today’s car perks like cruise control and a good
rear view camera and warning lights and sounds.
As the ads say, it can be snappy when you start
off – good pick up. But what first impressed us
was the wonderful quiet inside the car. We were
able to enjoy music on the radio. Of course, on
a freeway you can have heavy traffic road noise
from cars and trucks. We also noticed that when
you go to the garage for service there is no oil
change – a piece of gas car pollution removed.
And the service cost is a wee bit lower.
A difference from gas cars is that the car can
be driven in “one pedal” mode that we have now
got used to. In this mode, as you take your foot
off the accelerator the motor will brake the car
and recharge the battery. You can use the brake
pedal as well, as in a gas car, but for steadier
drivers it is possible to drive with little
pedal braking. This means there is no wearing of
brake pads nor any polluting dust from them.
This is another little hidden reduction of
pollution.
Some may consider it a downside that the heating
or cooling is done by a heat pump, so that power
is used from the big battery reducing kilometers
for travel. I must say we haven’t noticed any
competition for kilometers. And the plus is
another hidden reduction of pollution. A heat
pump is efficient. The enormous inefficiency of
the gas car is that a big fraction of the power
in the gasoline goes into heat. Not only does
the gas car pump out greenhouse gas, it pumps
out heat and some other unhealthy gases. It is
constantly using energy trying to keep the
engine cool enough. On a hazy summer day there
is air pollution in the city and there is heat.
The electric car is very efficient. A very high
fraction of the electrical energy goes into the
motion of the car itself. There is no major
effort to cool the motor. But, true, there is
the little energy the efficient heat pump is
using to heat or cool the passenger compartment
inside the car.
To be fair we need to look at the new world of
charging. The plus side of the gas car is that
gasoline is a good light-weight store of energy
and that the infrastructure for refueling with
gasoline is fully developed. The electric car
uses a heavy battery that in today’s electric
car can give up to around 500 km travel. One
comes close to that theoretical range when
travelling on roads at around 80 km per hour.
But on the freeway – the 401 for example –
average speeds are around 120 km per hour. At
these speeds the car uses more energy –
something true also for a gas car. We find we
get around half the “possible” kilometers from
the charge in the battery. So we wouldn’t get to
Ottawa on the 401 with our charged 500 km
battery. Another problem is that the battery
lasts longest if run between 20% of charge and
80% of charge. So you feel a need to stick to
80% and not run too low. This is fine around
town, but it is not good for the 401. Every time
you stop the car the display reminds you to
charge! However, this is not as bad as it
sounds.
Ideal for an electric car is a charger at a
privately owned home that can “fill up” the car
(to 80%) overnight in a few hours. You can use
the cheap after-7pm electricity rates. Chevy and
some other e-car sellers will help pay for
installing such a charger at your home. Call
that clothes-dryer power. Otherwise, “fill up”
can take a day or so using a regular outlet.
Call that toaster power.
We live in a Condo that gave us permission to
plug in to a regular outlet while the Condo
itself organized the installation of a couple of
shared drive-in clothes-dryer level chargers in
the building. The cost is not too far from the
ideal individual home charger, but we don’t get
that special after 7 pm cheap electricity and
our Condo building is making a small profit. We
typically pay about $5 to $10 to top up to
around 80% charge. For driving around town, it
it is possible to live with a clothes-dryer
power charger or even a toaster-power charger.
The challenge comes with a big trip. It requires
planning for reaching charging places. For us
this trip has been to the family cottage, around
250 km away on Prince Edward County, or to
Stratford or Niagara to see a play, say 150 km.
These involve inefficient 401 driving.
We were lucky in the timing of our e-car
purchase. In Summer 2022 four high-speed
chargers were introduced at most service centres
on the 401. These can “fill-up” or “top up” a
car in 20-40 mins at a cost of $9 to $12 for us.
(I should acknowledge that the service centre
chargers came as a result of a decision by the
Ford provincial government.) We like to have a
reserve of power, so we often stop for a coffee
or meal break on these drives. And we now know
where the chargers are at the service centres.
Most times we have just driven into one of the
four chargers. After getting past our own
teething troubles, we can now use the app on our
cell phones to start the charger and to monitor
the charging. However, there is still the
downside.
On holiday weekends or other busy times there
can be lineups for high-speed chargers. Even
with the small percentage of e-cars on the road,
many want to, or need to, top-up as we do. So,
the infrastructure is just not enough for busy
times. Worse, one or even more of the four
chargers can be out of commission. With a phone
call, time and some patience, the company may be
able to reset a charger from a distance and one
can charge. One needs to be aware of and
prepared to use less convenient and less
familiar back-up places like the Petrocan
station with a high-speed charger just off the
401 near Coburg or the Canadian Tire station
with a high-speed charger in Stratford. But
there will be frustrating moments finding the
charger and getting charging started with the
app on the cell phone in a novel venue. Slowly
we are getting a bigger repertoire of
comfortable charging places.
We took a useful plunge at quite a high cost at
the family cottage on Price Edward County.
There, we at first used the toaster-level
charger - a regular outlet and plug. But taking
more than a day to fill up after the big trip
was tedious. We installed a home charger, the
clothes-dryer level. Charging requires a few
hours. Moreover, if we decide to charge a bit
higher than optimum, say 90%, we can drive the
whole way back to Toronto. Of course, our need
to do this highlights the infrastructure
problem. Gas cars have gas stations all over the
place. It is not enough to have the odd
clothes-dryer level charger for patrons at a
wine store (when it is open). There is not one
single accessible working high-speed charger on
Prince Edward County. A solitary high-speed
charger has been listed in Picton, but it has
remained out of commission for nearly two years.
Some may challenge that making an electric car
pollutes in making and carrying a heavy battery,
that mining lithium and cobalt from questionable
situations in war-torn countries is a problem,
or that it requires energy to manufacture. A
Washington Post article has recently explored
this range of questions. Yes, there are ethical
and ecological problems. However, these are
minuscule compared to the scale of ecological
and pollution problems attached to the gigantic
oil industry.
There is no perfect solution to the dangers from
global warming that our use of oil and gas is
creating. Yet switching to electric cars is a
possible response our society can take. Those
choosing to go electric face learning some new
things, teething troubles of a developing
infrastructure, and a need to constantly fight
for Ontario to produce clean electricity for the
e-cars rather than electricity from petroleum
sources. The electric car offers a feasible way
to significantly reduce climate gas emissions
from Ontario, and to alleviate some street level
air, heat and noise pollution in Toronto.