The $514 million that Quebec plans to invest over the next five years in charging infrastructure for electric vehicles meets all the industry’s demands. It’s as if the Legault government was saying to car manufacturers: you no longer have excuses. Will they find another one?
Especially since, quietly, buried under the series of measures announced as part of this investment, the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks confirmed the raising of requirements of its zero-emission vehicle standard (ZEV standard).
These requirements raise the proportion of electric vehicles that will make up the total sales of light vehicles made in Quebec by major manufacturers by 2030. These new thresholds make the target of 2 million electric vehicles that Quebec wants to see on the road in 2030 more realistic.
It has been said: the best way to reduce transport energy consumption would be to reduce the number of vehicles altogether. In the meantime, the government is betting that the best solution is to make electric vehicles essential.
Smart terminals
The ZEV standard is the stick. The carrot is a fifteen-fold increase in the number of public charging stations installed in the province by 2030. Added to this is aid for the installation of residential terminals: Quebec calculates that 1.74 million terminals residential will be in operation in 2030.
Currently, more than 80% of electric vehicle charging takes place at home. To help people who do not live in a detached house with a driveway, we hope to electrify 600,000 spaces in the parking lot of multi-unit buildings.
To avoid congestion on the Hydro-Québec network, connected residential terminals will be preferred. These terminals have a wifi connection, which allows them to be controlled remotely via the Internet. Their owners will be able to schedule charging outside of the famous daily or seasonal peaks in electricity consumption.
Mind you, we could have gone further and anticipated the arrival of bidirectional terminals. These will allow — in addition to normal recharging — to recover the energy stored in the vehicle’s battery to power your home. As more weather events are predicted to threaten the power grid, tapping into your vehicle’s massive battery during outages is going to be of interest to many people.
It’s up to the manufacturers to play
In total, in Quebec in 2030 there will be almost as many charging stations as there are electric vehicles. Obviously, this will depend on the production capacity of the manufacturers. As their calculations are done on a global scale, they tend to favor markets where electrification is most profitable.
But not all manufacturers feel the same urgency. Toyota, for example, is being pulled by its ears. The largest automaker on the planet, which ironically led the charge in electrification during the 2000s with its small hybrid-powered Prius, cites the lack of charging infrastructure.
Again this summer, its leaders reaffirmed their preference for hydrogen. According to them, adding a hydrogen pump at gas stations would be more beneficial in cities, where residents do not have the space for a charging station.
The problem for Toyota is that adding a hydrogen pump to a gas station is expensive. Additionally, hydrogen battery vehicles are rarer and more expensive than electric cars.
Resistance test
Electrification promoters have all congratulated the government for this strategy. “Ambitious targets”, “intelligent planning”, “an excellent strategy”, proclaimed the sectoral organizations Propulsion Québec and Electric Mobility Canada.
If we can lower prices a little further, the movement will be well underway.
That said, the transition will not be smooth, experts warn. Another form of resistance must also fall: ignorance of technology. Environmentally conscious people might refuse to buy anything other than a new gas-powered car because they have been misinformed.
The reasons cited are not always accurate, or apply equally well to gasoline-powered vehicles, personal computers and even cell phones: pollution during assembly, rare metals taken from mines with inhumane working conditions, batteries that will end up in the landfill…
“These prejudices remain,” notes Daniel Breton, CEO of Electric Mobility Canada, who debunks these arguments every day. “They comfort people who don’t want to make change. No matter how hard we bring them the results of all the studies, they won’t believe it. »
“There are some we will never convince. »
For everyone else, there aren’t many excuses left.